Tell me a story
by Shauds02
Summary: Everyone in the Batfamily has something that makes them different, something the others just can't do. Stephanie hasn't found hers yet, so she decides to do the one thing none of them have ever done. She's going to have a civilised conversation with the Red Hood if it kills her, she really hopes it doesn't kill her. Pre new52. Really slow burn.
1. Heads

Stephanie fought not to cringe at every turn as she made her way through one of the most twisted, dark places she'd ever had the displeasure of visiting, and she'd visited a lot of twisted, dark places. The heavy footsteps of the guards behind her were the only things that drowned out the creepy sounds and she was left feeling oddly empty when the steel door shut behind her and she had to traverse the rest of the corridor alone.

Stupid bat training that left her footsteps so light. She clutched the paper bag just hard enough that she didn't squish the contents into so much mush in her shaky hands. The door she was nearing was both forever away and getting closer way too quickly for her liking, and she considered stomping her feet on purpose just so she wouldn't have to deal with the quiet when the grey slab of metal was right in front of her.

With a deep breath, she tried to pull up her Batgirl mentality. It was just like interrogating any other criminal, being in Arkham didn't make any difference, it wasn't like he was Joker-level crazy or anything. Still, better to be polite. She raised one hand, and before she lost the little confidence she'd pulled together she knocked.

She jumped when the sound reverberated through the corridor much more loudly than she'd though it would. There was some rustling from the other doors; bloodshot eyes pressed up to the little barred window cut into the door followed a particularly loud BASH from one nearer to her.

Stephanie chuckled nervously and waved at the inmate as she pressed her back against the door she'd knocked on. Someone else's amused snort was heard from inside. She pushed down the minor irritation at letting the place get to her before she'd even gotten into the damned room.

Barbara had said it was a bad idea, that she had nothing to prove, but they'd both known it wasn't true.

' _Right, going in.'_

She held the bag in front of her like a shield and pushed the door open.

Jason Todd, the Red Hood, slouched in his rickety metal chair like it was the most comfortable seat in the world. "First the old man, and now Robin 4.0, guess the grave's just not what it used to be, am I right?"

Stephanie took a second to wonder just what the hell she was doing there before she strode over and took the seat opposite him, nothing but the sturdy table between her and a killer with a grudge against anyone wearing a bat.

The bag crinkled when she set it on the table, his eyes barely flickered to it before settling on her, a creepy smile playing on his lips. Stephanie tried to channel her inner Barbara, but failed spectacularly when after a few minutes her fingers began drumming on the rusty metal. She'd been so focused on not chickening out of her visit she hadn't planned any conversation starters for when she actually got there. Everyone said Jason loved to talk? Why was he being so still?

The current Batgirl looked between him and the paper bag before awkwardly pushing it right to the edge of his side of the table. "So…"

"What, you put a head in there?" He cocked his head. "Cause even if it is mine, you can't exactly add to a life sentence."

"No, Penny-one said you liked chili-dogs." Stephanie blurted out, a little queasy at the idea of lugging around head in a paper bag. "Why would you think I brought you a head!?"

His shackles clinked when he poked the bag, toppling it on its side. "Was as good a guess as any." He shrugged. "Putting heads in bags _is_ what the Gotham street dealers know me for."

"Okay, gross." She waved her hands as if shooing his words away. "Can we save the blood and guts story for another time?"

"Made three of them blow chunks." Great, now he was being chatty. "Made up for the two hours work on its own."

"You know, saying things like that is why you didn't pass your mental evaluation. You could be…"

"I'm not crazy." He didn't quite slam his hands on the table, but having them in sight was unnerving enough. Those were the hands that had killed literally hundreds and all that stood between them and her was a table and some handcuffs.

"Suuure you're not." She drawled and tried to be subtle about sliding her seat a few more inches away from him.

He growled and clicked his jaw before speaking again. "Just tell me what you want so I can get back to sleep."

"Rude." Stephanie rolled her eyes and folded her arms. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to set this thing up?"

"I'm flattered, now. What. Do. You. Want, Blondie?" He'd balled his hands into fists now, and she knew she should have been more afraid, but she was emboldened by the mere fact that he hadn't tried to attack her yet. Not that she was kidding herself with the tried part.

"No really, it was a nightmare. It took forever to convince them I really was even Batgirl, you know one of them thought I was Harley Freaking Quinn for like an hour? Then Oracle tells me that nutcase actually pretended to be Batgirl once? And don't even get me started on the work it took getting them to let me bring in the food –which you'd better eat- when they got the idea it was components for Smilex and you were the Joker's apprentice or something." She had to cut her rant short to take a deep breath.

"You done?" He looked supremely bored as he looked at a point somewhere behind her.

"No, I am not done. Calling yourself Red Hood? Just why, you'd think it would occur to someone smart enough to take over the Gotham underground that naming yourself after that freak would give you some problems down the line." She huffed.

"Making it easy for teenage girls to visit me wasn't a factor, no." He folded his arms, the motion almost distracting her from what he said next. "It was supposed to be ironic."

"Dude, it would be like calling myself Black Mask and running around with a power-drill, it's dumb." She shot back.

The silence stretched on just long enough to be uncomfortable again before he spoke and she took the time to study the dark circles under his eyes. "No, that would be like calling myself Joker and running around with crowbars and bombs."

"You do kinda blow things up a lot." She mimicked his posture. "Hey, aren't you a teenager too?" She cocked her head with a frown.

He snorted. "No." His eyes shifted off to the side.

"Oh my god, you are!" She jumped to her feet and pointed one of her fingers within grabbing distance before she really registered what she was doing. "Just imagine the reaction it'd get if anyone found out that Red Hood, scourge of Gotham's underworld, isn't even twenty yet. They'd flip the fuck out."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth? 'Cause I can send it to her in a box" As if he wasn't angry enough before, he was steaming now. If she'd felt like pushing her luck more, Stephanie would have called his expression a pout, but she really wanted to leave Arkham alive, so she didn't let that thought linger.

"Please, it's nothing compared to the audio logs I've heard of you." She chuckled and settled back into her seat. "What were we talking about again?"

"You leaving." He growled.

"Nope, pretty sure it was me getting here." She held up one finger. "So anyway, I thought I was going to have to ask for help from Batman…" here Jason scoffed, "… but for someone that cold he can be a little over-protective, and I couldn't exactly ask Oracle, because, like no one knows she exists and the most she could do was schedule a _'legitimate'_ visit, and by then the chili-dogs would have been cold, and it would have been a tiny bit suspicious if a blond girl with a paper bag came in right after blond Batgirl with a paper bag left…"

"That was too many ands," Jason cut in.

"So I just told them I was your sister and that you'd be real mad if they didn't let me in." She spread out her arms and grinned. Jason's folded arms were twitching in a way that told her he was fighting to keep them that way. "Also, one of them, Schools or whatever, was kind of handsy and I said you were going to get him for it so…"

"You really have no idea what you've done, do you?" He clasped his hands in front of him tightly enough that his knuckles cracked.

"Came for a nice visit and brought you some non-prison food?" Her smile slipped just a little under the intensity of his glare. She lifted the paper bag upright. "Are you going to eat it?"

"No." He wasted no time in replying. "If you don't have anything important to tell me, then leave." He didn't turn away from her, but he might as well have.

"You really are an ass, you know." She sighed and stood up. "But, er thanks for not killing me the second I walked in the door." He scoffed and she took one last look at him as he slumped a little further into the uncomfortable chair before she left.

The heavy metal door was between them and let out a breathy sigh. That was it, mission failed, whatever that mission had been in the first place. She paused on her way to the other end of the corridor. Had she really failed?

Walking in she'd fully expected a fight, those cuffs couldn't have held him. Heck, even a strait jacket couldn't have held someone half as skilled as any robin was expected to be, and Jason did have training on top of that. That was something at least.

By the time she'd left the asylum, Stephanie had come to the conclusion that she'd made the same mistake this time as she had when she'd enacted the _War Games,_ lack of information. She didn't know how to talk to Jason because she didn't know anything about him.

She'd have something to tell him the next time she showed up, because next time she'd know more than his favorite food.

Stephanie Brown was a detective too, and it was time she proved that she could put those skills to use.


	2. Hey Brother

"You tried to blow up Black Mask with a freaking bazooka!" Was the first thing Stephanie said when the door shut behind her.

"You're back." He said, not even looking at her as he nonchalantly tapped the security button just above the bed he was laying on.

"Oracle disabled that." She eyed the little stool and desk next to his bed, but leaned against the far corner instead. There weren't any handcuffs that time, no table between them. It was a show of trust, those were a good start right? Show him she wasn't afraid of him and have him somewhere other than an interrogation room for once. She mimed an explosion with her hands. "The bazooka."

"It wasn't a bazooka, it was an RPG and I didn't try anything. I made desperate." Jason tapped the button again.

"You couldn't have needed him desperate a few weeks earlier?" She tried to keep her voice light as she tossed the tub of ice-cream she'd brought along at the desk, but she could have almost sworn she saw Jason flinch.

"It's not my fault Bruce didn't keep a closer eye on you." He kept his eyes on the ice-cream as he said it.

"It's Neapolitan, and not poisoned and delicious. I kind of ate half the tub while I waiting for them to clear me." She crept closer and dragged the stool back to her corner, not taking her eyes of him once. "That Schools guy was checking me out again, weirdo. You know anywhere can get an RPG without Batman finding out?"

"For what?" She caught the tiny glimmer of interest in his eyes. "I don't see you taking on Black Mask anytime soon."

"Who's to say? You took on the Joker; I figured I'd try my hand at being the rebellious one, seeing as you're the criminally insane one now." Her uneasy smile strained further when he cracked his knuckles, his interest turning into rage again. "Okay fine, you're not crazy, learn to take a joke, jeez."

"Don't compare me to the freaks in this place." He spat the words out, his lips twisted into a snarl.

Her hands itched for one of the batarangs in her fully stocked utility belt. "Alrighty then." She chuckled nervously. "Your ice-creams going to melt if you don't eat it now, or maybe you like melted ice-cream, or would that technically be a milkshake?"

"I'm not humoring you like I did last time, if you don't leave in the next ten seconds I'll make you regret ever putting on that costume Blondie." The dark edge to his voice sent chills down her spine, and she struggled to keep up eye contact when he held up his hands and started silently counting down the numbers.

"You know, if you tried to hurt me now, there's no way you'd ever get another transfer hearing." Her arms wrapped around her midsection. She hadn't shown Black Mask how afraid she'd been when he'd approached with a power drill, how much harder could it be with an unarmed nineteen year old.

He didn't answer, just kept counting down, that predatory aura around him not fading in the slightest. It was stuffy in the room, and she got the idea that maybe if it weren't so stuffy he wouldn't be in such a bad mood all the time. Then he stood and she caught sight of the ventilation slits blowing out enough clear air to gently ruffle his too long hair.

"Okay, okay." She jumped up and refrained from lifting the stool for use as a makeshift shield. "But I really did have an important criminal type question to ask you."

"Too bad." He said, dragging her over to the exit none too gently.

Her training kicked in and she slipped out of his grasp just as he knocked on the door.

She had a batarang in each hand seconds later. Training aside, people from her part of the city just felt better having something sharp in their hands, and she was no exception.

"Come on and fight me if you want." Her hands steadied as she stared the man down, Batgirl wasn't supposed to be afraid of anything, and remembering that helped her courage pool back into her icy veins. "But I'm not leaving until you answer me." At worst, he'd break some bones, even at his worst he didn't kill heroes, and she could take some broken bones.

"Fine one question." He leaned in close enough that she could see all the tiny creases in the bags under his eyes.

Stephanie swallowed, her throat suddenly feeling dry despite the lingering sweetness of the ice-cream she eaten. The slow loss of the little patience Jason had left with her was almost visible in how the lines around his eyes seemed to increase. His folder said green, but up close she could see they were more teal, they looked a little off against his orangey hair.

"How do get your hair dye here without anyone noticing?" She blurted out the first question sounding sentence that crossed her mind.

"What?" He was as surprised at the question as she was.

"I mean, it's a security risk, if you can get in hair dye, the other crazies can get all kinds of nasty things too, cant they?" Now that she thought about it, it was a pretty good question, just under why the hell he was still dying his hair after all that time.

"I don't dye my hair." Jason said, crossing his big arms much like he had the first time she'd visited.

"Then how d…" Stephanie's question was cut off by Jason marching over to the door and stating to bang loudly on it.

"You asked, now go." He said.

"You didn't answer." She shot back, but went over to the door anyway.

The guard that opened it jumped farther back than his pudgy stature made seem possible when he looked up to see the Red Hood standing right in front of him. She was torn between feeling sorry for the guy, and finding it hilarious. Jason scoffed and went back into the cell.

"By the way." She turned sharply on her heel, pointing a finger at him. "I saw you throw the chili-dogs away, you'd better eat the ice-cream.

She'd taken three steps down the hall when the icy tub sailed through the little gap in door before it slid closed and the mechanical locks clicked shut. When she ducked it crashed into a wall, the flimsy container cracking and splattering half melted ice-cream all over the place, some of the sticky droplets hitting her in the face.

The shock quickly morphed into a kind of anger and she pounded her fist on the little window on Jason's cell door. The man inside didn't even acknowledge her, sitting on his bed, staring at a wall like it was the only thing in the room.

"Could you be any more of an asshole?" She demanded, striking the glass again. He didn't even twitch and she pounded the glass again. In her frustration, she nearly told the guard to open the door again, but the image of Jason's hulking figure coming so close to violence a minute before held her back.

She brushed the ice cream of her face, her leathery glove just smearing the stickiness more as she left.

.

.

.

Jason didn't look up as Blondie made a scene at the door to his cell. She was lucky he'd been able to stop himself before he's turned her into a bloody puddle for the bats to drag away. It was bad enough Bruce pulled all those strings to keep him locked in the place with all of his other freaks when he wasn't crazy, and Jason wasn't crazy, he wasn't.

The wall was the safest things to look at while he tried to think through the rush in his head. The girl was gone, no longer pounding on his cell door, no longer feeding the rage that those damned meds they tried to hide in his food only magnified.

Didn't they know that giving those things to sane people messed them up, but then they wouldn't believe he was sane because Bruce told them otherwise, and who took the word of a manipulative head case over the goddamn Batman? Not the _trained_ Arkham staff and certainly not the stupid little girl that thought she had the right to walk in any time she damn well pleased.

He wasn't there for Bruce's child soldiers to ogle whenever they felt like being rebellious, not a Freakshow for them to come in and throw peanuts at. Sure he couldn't do anything to stop her from coming in, the place was so corrupt that pretty much anyone could do that, and he couldn't physically force her to leave without risking his next hearing, but he wasn't going to give her the show she wanted.

When he was absolutely sure both her and the guard were gone he leaned back on his narrow bed, resting his head against the wall. Thankfully his cell wasn't padded, that would have been… He shook his head before knocking it against the firm structure just hard enough to hurt, to prove he was still there.

There was a creaking sound outside and he moved to have a look out the little window in the gate. There was a janitor pulling his creaking cart down the otherwise empty corridor towards the mess left by the ice cream Jason had tossed at Blondie.

Jason's eyes were drawn to it, the small bit of destruction he'd managed to cause even from behind bars, with a tired resignation. The container had hit the wall hard enough that it had broken in two, splattering rainbow streaks of ice cream all along the wall, dripping to the floor in some places. His mind instantly came up with a similar splatter pattern he'd once formed with a very different substance. His breath caught in his throat while he watched the viscous liquid drip down to the floor, joining the small puddle that had formed.

He chuckled darkly to himself, remembering the smell of iron while he watched the ice cream coagulate. The janitor heard the sound, his head shooting up hard enough that he must have gotten whiplash before he hurriedly plugged in his earphones and tried not to focus on the killer watching from the other side.

 _Idiot._ Jason chided himself and went back to his bed, tapping his head against the wall. Here he sat feeling so proud for not rising to her bait when that's exactly what he'd done letting his anger get the better of him again. She was probably on her way to patrol with her fellow sidekicks and tell them all about how Jason Todd had flipped his shit when she'd asked about his fucking hair dye. _'But it's not he's fault he's crazy.'_ He could practically hear them.

Even when he couldn't see the ice cream splatter he could see it. Was it messed up that the splatter of ice cream on the Asylum walls bothered him more than the splatter of blood in a stinking alley had? Probably, but he didn't care, the phantom scent of Neapolitan tickled his nose and he felt sick.

That was all the proof they'd need, wasn't it? They wouldn't care that he hadn't hurt her, they'd grab onto any scrap of proof they could fabricate that he belonged with all the other freaks.

He might as well have word the tub in his head and called himself Captain Ice Cream, or Neapolitan? Captain Neapolitan would have sounded cooler. Heh, cooler that was a real Robin pun right there. And he bet all they'd say was _'Poor Jason Todd, it's not his fault, the Lazarus Pit made him crazy.'_

Well he wasn't, and he wasn't going to let them carry on easing their guilt by thinking that he was.

Lights out felt like it came a little sooner than usual and he glared up at the blinking red light of the camera that was constantly watching him. In his mind, fuzzy with a lack of sleep the blinking of the camera became the blinking of a bomb. Laughter tickled the back of his head and he knocked his head on the wall again as he watched it.

Another sleepless night then… it didn't matter, he was mostly nocturnal anyway.

.

.

.

"Can you believe that?" Stephanie raged into her comm. As she punched a thug in his face, pretending that it was Jason Todd's scruffy, obviously died red beard. "And he needs to shave, too the asshole." She punched the thug twice more for good measure.

' _I warned you he was unhinged_.' Barbara sighed in her ear. ' _You were at best wasting your time at worst…'_

"I don't care if he's _unhinged,_ " she said the last word in an impression of her mentor's voice. "That's no excuse for him being an asshole." She ducked a knife and punched it's wielder right in his generous gut. She threw him to the ground and stomped down on his wrist maybe a bit harder than she needed to for him to drop the knife. She picked the weapon up and swept it out the point just touching the face of the man final thug. "Do not test me tonight Bub." She warned and he dropped his own knife holding his hands up in surrender.

"Great!" She moved to zip tie them to a pole while Barbara called the cops to pick them up. There was a grin on her lips while she tightened the binds on the one with the scruffy face. "Nothing like redirecting your aggression onto some worthwhile targets." She hummed.

"Geez lady, I'm just doing my job." Scruffy thug whined.

"That's not an excuse for being an asshole either." She rapped the back of his skull with her knuckles before she shot out her grapple and zoomed up to the rooftops.

The cool air filled her lungs and she did a not very necessary flip when her feet touched down of the gravelly surface.

"Where was I?" She asked, then carried on before her mentor could reply. "Then he starts counting down from ten, and not with his words. Oh no, he just has to be a condescending prick about it and count down with his fingers. Make me wish I'd never put on the costume, he called my uniform a costume Oracle."

' _It is technically a costume, I mean I came up with it for a costume party_.' Barbara replied.

"Doesn't matter, he's still an asshole, and it's still _my_ uniform." Stephanie huffed. "You know what, I think I'm gonna make him apologize. He's not that scary"

' _There's a mugging two streets west_.' Barbara said tiredly.

"After I stop that mugging." Stephanie shot out her grapple and set off again.

She didn't waste time announcing herself, just leaped into the alley and flipping off a fire-escape to slow her fall before landing on the muggers shoulders. His nose hit the wall behind his victim with a spray of blood. Stephanie winced when the dazed man gripped his nose as he scrambled back.

' _I heard that_.' Barbara said.

"You heard nothing." Stephanie muttered as she turned to the guy still standing by the wall. Most of the time they would've been gone by then, and if they weren't they it was usually because they were hurt or in shock, often both. "You okay there buddy, need a doctor or a paper bag, or…"

There was a click of a gun at her left temple as someone slipped out of the shadows. "Just you Batgirl, or should I say…" His breath smelled heavily of tobacco. She looked at him without turning her head while the hapless _civilian_ she'd just rescued got out a knife. "…the Red Hood's sister."

' _Batgirl, what's going on_?' Barbara sounded worried.

"Your brother killed mine, so I think it's fitting…"

She ducked just as his finger twitched to pull the trigger and grabbed the Knife-guy's arm, pulling him forward to stab Gun-guy in the shoulder while he got shot in the foot. Her knee hit the gun into the air and she brought up her arms to crack their heads together.

"Oh the fatal flaw of all crooks." Stephanie sighed dramatically as she kicked Broken-nose-guy into his cohorts as he was trying to sneak up on her. "These idiots speak too much." She tied them to the pole again.

' _Batgirl!_ ' Barbara demanded.

"I'm fine O." Stephanie said. "I just found out why the asshole was mad at me for saying I was his sister." Barbara's long suffering sigh was at least ten times more terrifying than the gun to the head had been. "So uh, got anything else for me?"

.

.

.

"Baker listen, I really need to get in to see Hood right now, some guys tried to shoot me and I have to slap him in the face for it." Stephanie said, practically leaning over the Arkham guard three hours later.

"Unfortunately, due to the incident when you visited earlier, he's not…" The poor guy was sweating profusely while he typed at the keyboard she knew didn't really do anything he had the clearance for.

"Yeah whatever, but this time it's a for reals investigation, you're impeding my investigation Jeff." Her styrofoam take out box squeaked as she slid I across the counter.

"We try to keep out patients on a tight schedule Miss." He mumbled. "Please come back tomorrow during visiting hours."

"But that's when Schools is on duty." She whined, ignoring his correction of "Scholz". "Are really going to put me through Schools again? I bet you don't make Batman come during visiting hours, am I gonna have to call in Batman?"

"I'm sorry, there's really nothing I can do." If possible the guy looked even more nervous. "Please leave."

"Jeff, I need to see him, or people will die, do you want people to die?" She questioned.

"No." He conceded. "Maybe if you didn't bring the food…" He gestured at the cooling styrofoam in her hands.

"Without this food, the one dying might be me." She said, clutching it to her chest. "I'd rather not die in this creepy asylum, no offense."

"No, it's fine, it is creepy." He stood with a resigned frown and they began the long walk to Jason's cell.

"You won't let him kill me if he's mad I woke him up, right?" Baker asked, his hands shaking as he lifted this keycard.

"I promise." She smiled brightly. If the halls had been creepy during the night time visiting hours, they were super creepy this close to dawn. The groans and occasional scream that punctuated the near silencer made it even worse.

"Sorry, a lot of them have nightmare's." Baker said, like he was afraid she'd somehow blame him for the sounds. He swiped his key card one last time at Jason's cell before skittering back into the hallway.

She leaned hesitantly into the room, telling herself that she'd leave if he was asleep, the sharp eyes that fixed on her tossed that plan right out the non-existent window. No one in their line of work was ever asleep that time of night.

"Hi." She said, hesitantly waving her hand. This wasn't a conversation they could have with the door open, but she really didn't want to get too close to him in the dark. What if he hallucinated her as Joker or something? "Can I come in?"

"Can I stop you?" He said.

"This time I promise it's important." Okay, maybe not as important as she'd made it out to be, more of less flimsy excuse really. She was pretty sure there were more people who wanted her dead for her connection to Batman.

"What?" He asked, less of a biting challenge now than a tired sigh.

She stepped in and let the door slide shut behind her, a dim light, very dim, flickering on courtesy of Baker. "I brought waffles?"

He didn't say anything, instead leaning further back, his head hitting the wall with a soft clunk.

"It's okay if you don't want them, I like waffles, so I'll just eat them myself." She sat on the ground, choosing not to risk getting close enough to get the stool again. "You know how when I told you I had to pretend to be your sister to get in? I get how that was a bad idea."

She paused for him to insert whatever mean comment he had prepared, but carried on after a few more seconds of his stubborn silence. "If you had to guess, how many more people want me dead now?"

"Not as many that just want to make you suffer." He said blandly.

"Okay." She bit her lip took note of the way he was sitting, it didn't look comfortable by any means, but not like he was going to take a swing at her either. "You got any idea how I can get myself out of this?"

"Kill them all."

Stephanie got out one of the syrupy waffles, the takeout box squeaking clearly in the quiet. "I can't do that." She took a big bite of the palm-sized snack.

"Then go ask someone else." There was a blinking red light in the corner of his cell, and his eyes were fixed on it.

"That thing must be really annoying." She pointed out. "How do you sleep in here?"

"Better when I'm not being interrupted." He gave her and the door a pointed look.

"Yeah, sorry." She said, feeling a little bad now that she knew she'd woke him up. "Hey, before I go, is there any food I could bring here that you would eat?"

"No."

She nodded and got to her feet, leaving the other waffle on his desk. Better to leave before he got angry again. "So a drink then? You look like you could do with a coffee." She tapped on the door, and if he was going to answer, he didn't before she was gone.

' _Did you get him to say sorry_?' Barbara asked as soon as she switched her comm back on.

"Nope, but he didn't threaten me this time." She got on her motorcycle and left the asylum at full speed, exhilarated by the wind whipping her hair all over the place and the roar of the engine drowning out the other sounds of Gotham. Make her regret being a super-hero? Not likely.

And she was making progress too.


	3. Coffee

"You do realize he could kill you?" Tim said, shielding his eyes as he stepped out of the comparatively dim WE building.

"Sure." Stephanie waved him off hoping it came off as nonchalant as she'd meant it to. "You don't criticize my suicidal projects and I won't criticize yours."

"Just checking." He looked at his watch before nodding. "I have half an hour, what did you need my help with?"

"The one thing only you, oh great and knowledgeable Tim Drake can be trusted with." She said, guiding him down cluttered streets surrounding the business hub of Gotham.

"And what, I this instance, am I so knowledgeable about?" He yawned. "I should get coffee while I'm out."

"Exactly." She raised a finger, bringing it up to his face. "How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?"

"I thought we weren't criticizing suicidal habits today." He rolled his eyes.

"I said, projects, and I'm not criticizing you." She stopped in front of the highest rated coffee shop in Gotham, waving her arms dramatically at the building. "I needed you specifically for your unmatched coffee expertise."

"You want my advice about getting coffee?" Tim arched one sharp eyebrow.

"I'm pretty sure if I show up tonight with my cheap filter coffee he'll break out of Arkham just to strangle me to death." She joked, but she really wouldn't have put it past Jason to do just that if just asking him to eat his favorite food got the guy violent.

"Did you stop to think that showing up with anything would have the same effect?" Tim dug around in his blazer pockets. Stephanie groaned in anticipation of another lecture, but he carried on as though he hadn't heard her. "If you're not going to stop doing this, maybe do it a way that doesn't antagonize him."

"What do you think the food is for?" Stephanie asked. "I have thought this through Tim." Well, she'd tried thinking it through, then thinking about it almost made her deicide not to visit again.

"With bad information." Tim paid for the coffee Stephanie hadn't even noticed him order and handed her one of the steaming cups. "'Hey Jason, lets eat some ice-cream and talk about how messed up you are'" He spoke in a high pitched voice that was clearly meant to be an imitation of her.

"What's so wrong with that? It's good to talk your problems out." She was tempted to toss her coffee at him, but a second of thought was all it took for her to realize how petty that would have been.

"It's patronizing." Tim watched her over the rim of his cup like he knew exactly what she was thinking and that she was welcome to try. "Nobody likes a condescending know-it-all, and implying he needs your charity just makes it worse."

"You know all about condescending know-it-all, don't you?" Steph mumbled. She hated when he did that, turned on his big brain and made her feel like she had no idea what she was doing. Most off all, she hated that he was right.

"I know a lot about a lot of things." He smirked.

"And I know I hate you." She took as big a sip of her hot coffee as she dared.

"Happy to help Steph." He checked his watch again. "I have to go, good luck." He waved over his shoulder and disappeared into the throngs of people on his way back to his big important board meeting or whatever he did at WE.

.

.

.

Jason hated that Arkham allowed patients to leave there cells for extended periods of time. Did they not see how many security risks they created every time they did that? The swishing of doors opening every day was like nails on a chalkboard to his ear.

It didn't help that they dragged him to those common areas everyday as well. After the first time, he'd tried resisting, fighting the guards that came for him every day, but he soon realized that it just wasn't worth it. The 'psychiatrists' thought it was unhealthy for him stay on his own all day.

Like it wasn't worse being stuck in a room full of people who would kill him if given half the chance.

The guards slapped a pair of cuffs on him and herded him into that pastel room. He wished he could have kept his head down, ignored everyone else there, but he'd been too well trained for that. Like everyday, he made note of everyone's positions.

Dent and Nygma were playing cards at a little table while Quinn and Isley watched from one on the uncomfortable sofas. There were other people milling about, but those who could have posed a threat were so drugged they could barely move. Jason repressed a shudder when he walked past one of them.

The only reason Jason went along with most of the asylum's 'treatment' plans was so he didn't end up like them.

To a casual viewer he was completely at ease in the sturdy plastic chair, his eyes locked on the small TV hanging out of reach, playing cartoons. They didn't let the inmates watch the news anymore after the one too many escapes. There weren't even any calendars in sight thanks to Calendar Man, not that it mattered when Jason knew the guy had a whole stash in his room.

He sat there and watched the room, coming up with a dozen plans should any of them approach him. He was sure Quinn at least knew about his connection to Batman and there was no telling how many people she would have blabbed to, unless Joker had told her not to. The psycho liked to keep his games with Batman apart from the other crazies.

There was a clock on the far wall, digital thank god, that was ticking away the seconds until Jason could go back to the solitude of his cell.

Damn Bruce for keeping him locked up there. He had to fight to keep his muscles relaxed when Maxi Zeus began moving towards him. Jason watched the man's approach in the small reflective strip on the TV. The guy didn't say anything to him though, just plopped down in the next seat over and fixed his eyes on the cartoon as well.

The Disney version of Hercules was on. In another time Jason could have found it funny, how despite all their efforts, they couldn't have built the place around the obsessions of all those it housed. Right then he was too busy watching the man besides him, close enough to touch, for any sign that he might need to defend himself soon.

The Greek hero on the screen swam through a pool of shrieking souls while he literally wasted away. Jason felt worms crawling under his skin, slithering around his body until they could grow wings and legs crawl though his… He abruptly turned his mind away from those thoughts, resting his elbow on the sides of the chair and propping his head on his palm to make turning his head from the screen look more natural.

Maxi Zeus was so medicated all he could do was stare blankly at the watered down version of the legends he'd driven himself crazy over. Jason could almost imagine that being him in a few years. Realistically it wouldn't take long for the shrinks to get frustrated with his lack of progress and drug him into oblivion too.

Hours passed and Jason's anxiety mounted, he watched the clock some more, the movie ended and still Max Zeus stayed besides him. Quinn's shrill laughter ran through the room, accompanied by Isleys softer chuckle and slowly, so slowly he didn't even realize it at first, tension crept into Jason's muscles.

By the time he was finally taken back to his cell, all he could do was sink onto his narrow bed, heedless of the corners digging into his sides.

A tray was plopped down on the table next to him, the food had the powdery taste that everything they gave him had since they'd been told he'd hadn't been taking the medication himself. Most of the food went discreetly down the drain.

Jason laid back on his bed, his mind wondering aimlessly until he began to think that maybe he could sleep for a few minutes. Next thing he knew, there was a chipper voice chattering away down the hall.

His anxiety gave way to anger as the cell door slid open. He did what only one of his teachers had ever suggested and pretended the source of that anger didn't exist.

.

.

.

"Okay, so I wasn't gonna bring anything tonight, but last time I _did_ tell you I'd bring coffee and just in case you were actually looking forward to it, I brought the coffee anyway." She put the holder on his little desk, six steaming cups filling the cell with the rich smell. "I didn't know what you'd like so I brought one from every end of the coffee spectrum, sweet, bland, regular, creamy, extra creamy, and rocket fuel." She listed off her offerings proudly.

Jason gave no indication that he'd heard her, laying with his arms folded behind his head, eyes closed like he was sleeping.

"I promise this is the last time I'll try and make you eat though, I just really thought you'd like it." Stephanie took his stool back to her corner and waited a few seconds for a response. The cell remained quiet but for the nervous tapping of her boot.

"You can't fall asleep that fast Jason." She huffed, frowning at the man, when he didn't move she got up and stalked as near to him as she dared, getting a closer look at his face. He really looked like he was sleeping, but so could she if she needed to. "I'm gonna search the room for your hair dye if you don't stop me."

He still didn't move, and she looked around the cell for anywhere he could have hidden it, but the only place that would have provided some coverage was under his bed, and she wasn't quite suicidal enough to get that close.

Settling back on the stool she watched for him so mess up and give his wakefulness away so she could call him out on it. She wanted to say something to him about giving up the only chance at sane conversation as he'd get, but stopped herself when she remembered Tim's words on the subject.

"Hey, you wanna hear a funny story?" She asked instead, pausing for a response she wouldn't get. "Okay, so I had this paper to write, but whenever I take time off for school work the whole Batbrood" Jason's mouth twitched a tiny bit at the word, "gives me this look like 'You know you're not really cut out for this life' and I _hate_ that."

"So I bring the stuff out with me on patrol, cause I figured I could get it done while I was staking something out, but it was it was so busy I didn't think I'd get a chance to do it. Eventually I just gave up and told them I had to go home. And Batman starts with this lecture about not letting my personal life get in the way of the nightlife; I bet you know the one." She took the sweet coffee from his desk and scooted back to her corner.

"And I told him that not everybody could get away with focusing only on the nightlife and Robin got all upset, talking about all the other things his father does for the city. And he starts listing off all the improvement projects, and Red Robin stage whispers that I should be taking notes, you know how sarcastic he is, but I took notes anyway." She drank off half the coffee in one go before she kept talking.

"And I handed in the notes just like that. When I got them back I gave them to Robin and he actually sent a complaint letter to the college for their _'incompetent'_ grading system because it got a B when anything he had an input on just had to get an A." She chuckled. "The look in his face when Batman, the other Batman, can we just call him Nightwing, had to explain to him why he couldn't send the letter, it's something you have to have seen to believe."

"I still hate that class though." She scowled into her coffee. "What about you, did you have any classes you liked in school? Hood?" She got out the telescopic staff she hardly ever used and poked his cheek. He sleepily batter the weapon away and shot her a tired glare.

"Rude." He huffed, tucking his head under his pillow.

"I'm rude? You can't just fall asleep in the middle of a conversation!" She poked him again, in his ribs this time, his hand shot out to grab the staff and tug it out of her grip, almost pulling her off balance before tossing the weapon across the cell.

"I bet you were never even in school, and when you were you just slept though all your classes." She crossed her arms and did her best impression of Barbara's glare. "Asshole."

He didn't reply, back to pretending to be asleep.

"Fine." She got retrieved her staff and briefly considered poking him with it, very briefly. "Don't think I'm not coming back you big baby. I can be childish too."

.

.

.

Jason didn't need to think about it too hard to come to the conclusion that she'd taken his silence as a challenge. She showed up every few nights, dragging the stool she'd claimed as hers, since she thought he never used it, to the corner and droning on about absolutely nothing.

He didn't speak to her once, didn't even look at her, he just closed his eyes and tried to pretend she wasn't there at all. Her stories on the other hand became more and more outlandish, one of them even featuring a fight in which she swore she could have taken Superboy out.

It only took a few visits to realize that his plan had backfired, but Jason Todd was nothing if not determined, and he stuck it out anyway.

After a month, he really did fall asleep during many of her visits, her voice drowning out the constant rushing in his ears and allowing his brain to shut down enough to get a few consecutive hours of sleep. He wouldn't go so far as to say he liked having her there, in fact every time she stepped into his cell he had to bite down on the urge to smother her with his pillow, but that rage ebbed away as the minutes passed by and he was only annoyed when they ended.

"Okay." Batgirl huffed, dumping something heavy on the ground next to her when she took the stool. "I'm going to sit here and do my homework while you lay there and _'sleep',_ you'd better not bug me."

He thought she was just trying to bait him into a response with her bad attempt at reverse psychology, but the only sounds from her that night were her frustrated mumbling and pencil scraping on paper.

Curios, he lifted his pillow just enough that he could watch her and make sure she wasn't distracting him so she could ransack his cell like she'd almost done when he'd ignored her the first time. She didn't notice, her narrowed eyes glued to the stacks of papers on her lap, cursing softly when they slipped of the uneven surface and clattered to the floor.

He glanced up at the camera, wondering what the people monitoring it thought when they saw Batgirl sitting quietly doing homework. Bruce would have blown a fuse if Jason had ever tried the same in the Robin get up. It ruined the mystique of Batman image, when he and or any of his allies were seen doing mundane, everyday things like that.

Maybe it was different for the Batgirls though, being allies but not ultimately under Batman's control. Still, it wasn't something he could imagine Barbara doing, not that he'd ever claimed to know her very well.

He shifted his pillow under his head and laid staring at his ceiling for the rest of that visit, listening to the near silence. It was familiar, the feint scent of paper and sound of scribbling. Bitter nostalgia washed over him as he folded his arms behind his head.

Her eyes caught the movement, but she didn't comment on it, only shooting a few glances at him while she continued on with her homework.

She was still quiet up until she packed her books away and brushed her pencil shavings off her lap.

"I had another story to tell you tonight, but I had to finish that was already overdue and my professor is a slave driver, and now I forgot the story. Hey, maybe you can tell me one." She leaned forward, resting her head in her hands as though she really expected him to say something. "It can even be the putting heads in a bag one."

Telling her to leave again would have been pointless, and he didn't have anything else to say to her, so he didn't.

"More quiet time then." She yawned. "I really shouldn't do my homework before patrol, there's nothing like dry reading to mess with your work ethic, but it's almost the end of the semester, so I have to take any chance I can get to finish up all this work. I have this school friend who never studies, at all, and her grades are still great."

She sighed. "I bet you're sick of hearing about my school life by now anyway, and I've gotta go before Oracle starts yelling my ear off." She swung her bag over her shoulder and waved at him. "Night Hood."

He waited until the door slid shut before he looked over at the little mess she'd made in the corner of his cell. When he got up to put the stool back in its place he noticed something sticking out from under the piece of furniture.

She'd left one of her books behind. Her voice retreated down the hall as he picked the battered notational copy of _"Oliver Twist"._ He got a glimpse of her turning a corner from the window in his door, and looked back at the book.

Sitting on the bed, he considered tearing the pages out, leaving them in that corner for her to find or shredding them to pieces and letting the pieces away with the rest of the trash. His lights clicked off and he did neither. He tucked the book under his matters where no one would see it and sat back to watch the blinking light of the camera.

She'd be back to get it eventually anyway.


	4. Three Months

The smell hit Jason before anything else and he woke from his fitful sleep with a groan he partially muffled with his pillow. It was bad enough she disturbed him when he was awake, but when he'd finally gotten some sleep? It was almost enough to make him reconsider his silence just to insult her.

He would have tried going back to sleep, but the footsteps that followed the strong herbal smell were both lighter and firmer than Blondie's, accompanied by others that were nowhere near heavy enough to be the regular Arkham guards.

"Jason this childish ploy of yours does not amuse me nearly as much as it seems to you, now sit up and face me properly." The lights flickered on, not the dim ones they used for nighttime visits, but a full on fluorescent glare.

'Oh fuck no.' Jason did sit up, but brought the pillow with him to shield his eyes from the bright lighting.

There was a ceramic clinking on the small desk and the herbal smell intensified while he heard liquid sloshing into cups.

"Leave us." She ordered and the other footsteps retreated, the heavy door sliding shut behind them.

"You sure you're okay being locked in a room with the ax murderer?" He grumbled, peeking over his pillow with as threatening a gaze as he was capable of right then.

"To my knowledge your skill with an ax is rudimentary at best."Talia's lips curled in distaste as she looked around at the sparse cell, before turning on him. Her eyes scanned him and he felt oddly self-conscious at the inspection.

"Dunno, I think I could do pretty good job with one." He pressed his head against his pillow, to stave off the dizziness that came with sitting up too fast. "Please be a dream." He muttered.

The pillow was tugged out of his hands and set down at the foot of his bed, leaving him unshielded from her sharp green eyes.

"I assure if it was it would be a nightmare." She looked down on him with a frown that fit perfectly with her next words. "You disappoint me Jason; I wouldn't have expected you to allow this…" She snarled. "Indignity."

"It's an asylum, Talia." He shot back at her. "so I'm sorry if it's not up to your standards, could you tell me what the fuck you're doing here and…"

The sound of the slap reverberated off the walls loud enough that he was sure the assassins down the wall had heard it, and Jason instinctively brought his hand up to his cheek over the bright red print he knew she'd left behind.

"Disrespectful boy." She took one of the steaming china cups off the desk and after a look at the stool made it clear she wouldn't be stooping low enough to use it, brought the tea to her lips. "You will not behave as if I am one of your father's children, do you understand?"

He nodded dumbly, and after a pointed look from her, picked up the other cup and took a small sip of the scalding liquid. It was honey sweetened and spiced generously, melting away some of the Arkham chill in his bones.

"You came to yell at me for shooting your demonic princeling?" Jason asked, focusing on the warmth of the cup in his hands.

"Among other things." She eyed him with a calculation frown, not like she could really judge him to much over that when she'd sent assassins to off the little brat herself at one point. With a sigh she picked up a sliver tray of little savory pastries and held it out to him. "This place has not been good to you."

"It's not exactly a five star hotel." Jason took one of the offered snacks and after one bite had to reign himself in from shoveling the rest in his mouth, that wouldn't have gone over well no matter how hungry he was. "I'm not supposed to be comfortable here."

"Yet here you are." She left the tray balanced on his knees and brushed an imaginary strand of hair from her face. "I was sure you were merely biding your time, but it has been almost a year."

"I had a few plans." Jason took another pastry. "But most of them involved being declared sane, and I don't really see the point in leaving anyway."

"I see." If she weren't so damn sophisticated he was sure Talia would have been rolling her eyes. "As usual you would rather waste away than face your mistakes." She finished off her tea and poured another cup.

"I'm too tired to have this conversation." He refused to flinch at the withering glare she sent him, returning it with a blank stare that belied the newly rekindled rage in his chest. Like it was so damned easy to break out of Arkham with no contacts and no funds to buy them with.

Talia sighed again, this time a long-suffering exhale of air that, along with her twitching hands showed just how much he was trying her patience. "I suppose all of the blame cannot be placed on you." She set her tea cup down. "I should have known you were too unstable to be allowed such freedom."

"Allowed such freedom?" Jason growled, the rushing in his ears growing marginally louder. "I didn't need your permission to do anything."

"Exactly." She said. "And there lies the problem. Let me make myself clear this once Jason." She leaned in close enough that he could practically feel her reading his mind. "If you do not get yourself out of this place within three months I will be forced to intervene, and you will no longer be allowed to do just as you please."

She straightened up and hit a button at her wrist, summoning her escorts as she gently brushed s hand along the back of his head before moving to the door.

"Finish those pastries Jason, you've lost far too much weight." She turned to half look over her shoulder at him while the tea set was collected. "And it wouldn't kill you to shave before we meet again. Farwell."

The door shut and the lights flickered out, leaving him alone in the quiet cell with the tray on his legs the only sign anyone would have had that she'd been there at all. Jason did eat the last of the pastries and shoved there tray under his bed.

He was staring at the blinking light again when it her words to him finally sank in.

"Shit." He whispered, running a hand through his too-long hair. How was he supposed to come up with a plan in three months?

((line break))

Ninjas everywhere.

Stephanie had been running from location to location for hours trying to help fight off the swarms of badly dressed assassins who's only purpose seemed to be ruining her night as thoroughly as they could.

'Batgirl there's a bomb at the Crown Point community center; Red Robin needs backup and you're the closest.'

She delivered a particularly brutal kick at what she'd been hoping was her last assassin of the night.

"If I see Ra's I'm gonna do something really, really bad to him." Stephanie groused as she hopped on her bike and scared the crap out of a would be mugger passing by when she tore out of the alley.

'As if you would prove a challenge for my grandfather.'

"Get off my comm you gremlin. And for your information, I bet I could at least key his car before he notices me." She said. "Probably."

'Actually I just heard from an informant that Ra's is in Istanbul, so there's got to be someone else pulling the strings on this one.' Tim said dryly, the sound of typing audible in the background.

'You think they're after Lil D again?' Dick breathed heavily, and Stephanie was reminded that he'd been doing most of the heavy lifting that night.

'We should be so lucky.' Tim scoffed.

'Please keep the comm chatter to a minimum.' Barbara cut in just as Damian was starting his rant. 'It's hard enough to coordinate without you distracting me.'

Stephanie arrived at the community center just as the ninjas were clearing out. On the one hand: great, she didn't need to fight them, but she had to question the wisdom of running towards whatever they were leaving in such a hurry.

She'd only taken a few steps into the building when she was lifted and thrown bodily back out the door by a speeding blurry Tim.

"Get down!" He yelled, tossing her behind some hedges and landing half on top of her, shielding them both with his cape.

A second later a loud BOOM shattered windows, scattering broken windows all over the surrounding park. That was that. Stephanie sighed, pushing Tim off her, only the BOOM hadn't sounded quite right.

Tim's face was stony as he stood, looking at the scene with the same clinical detachment as always, though there was that curling of his lips that made WE board members die a little inside whenever he directed it their way.

Apart from the windows the center was still standing, only it was coated with the same noxious smelling substance that covered Tim from head to toe. The gooey orange stuff had poured out of the windows and the open door, dribbling down the steps and walls to sink into patchy grass.

'Red Robin, report.' Bruce demanded after the few moments of silence that followed.

Tim brought up a hand to click on his comm, but failed to find his voice as a glob off goo dropped off a tree and onto his head.

Without a word Stephanie got out her phone and snapped a picture. Tim's glare could have turned oceans to steam.

He brushed the stuff away from his mouth and stalked off to answer Batman, leaving Stephanie alone in the park.

'Good work Batgirl, you can head home.' Oracles voice was barely audible over Stephanie's uncontrollable laughter.

Those three minutes had almost made up for how much the rest of the night had sucked. Another glob of orange dropped from the same tree, this time splattering across her shoes. Yeah almost.

She would've asked if there were any other ninja's around for her to wreak her righteous vengeance on, but then Damian started practically screaming over the comms about his mother. Stephanie was back on her bike and speeding away before she even had time to think about it.

Wayne family drama was something she wanted no part of.

((line break))

Barely a day after Talia had left Jason was pulled from his not-sleep again, that time by the comparatively less welcome hands of the Arkham security guards, cuffed and almost dragged out of his cell.

It had taken only one scathing look at the cowardly guards for them to back off and let him walk towards the interrogation room on his own.

The room appeared empty when he slouched down in the uncomfortable plastic chair and tried not to yawn. "Enough with the fucking dramatics old man, you know I don't care."

Still the lights dimmed and flickered before Batman appeared, emerging from the darkness like the specter he wanted the criminal element to believe he was.

A stack of pictures were dropped on the table, but Jason didn't look at them.

"I'm too locked up to know anything and like hell I'd tell you if I did." After their last conversation Jason didn't have anything else to say to the man who kept him locked in that hell-hole.

"You had a visitor last night, what did she tell you?" Bruce growled.

"Geez, stop doing that voice before you get throat cancer." Jason rolled his eyes and leaned his head back to study the cracks in the ceiling.

"This is serious; she spent a lot of resources keeping us too busy to track her down before it was too late, why?" He demanded leaning as close to the younger man as Talia had the previous night.

Jason was just considering using the same tactic he did on Blondie when he was pulled out of his chair and lifted an inch off his feet by the front of his jumper.

"No games Hood, what are you planning?"

"Oh you know, murder, world domination, the usual." Jason shrugged as casually as he could suspended in the air. He didn't break out of Bruce's hold, maybe he wasn't as heavy as he'd been a few months ago, but he was still curios to see how the other man could hold him up for.

An idea struck him and he looked Bruce dead in the eye, letting a cruel smirk cross his lips. "She did mention the brat, suggested I go for a headshot next time."

With something that was half a growl and half rage filled scream Batman slammed Jason into the wall, his arms wrapped around the younger man's throat. "You'll leave Robin out of this." He hissed.

"Or what?" Jason had to force the words out through rough hold Batman had on his throat. "I'm not scared of you Bruce, there's literally nothing more you can do to me."

Something flashed across Bruce's face, but it was gone before Jason could define. He was dropped to the ground while Batman turned away.

Jason rubbed his sore neck and got up, moving back to the chair and feigned indifference for the half a minute Batman was quiet. Whatever had happened the previous night had to have shaken him up. Not bad enough that Jason thought one of his soldiers had been hurt though.

"Can I go back to bed now." His voice sounded more tired than he would have liked, but it did the trick.

Bruce turned back to him, one of his hands reaching up before he caught the movement. The lights flickered again and Jason was alone again.

"Theatrics." Jason muttered with a sigh as the guards came to cart him back to his cell. The look on Bruce's face stuck in his mind the whole walk back though, and Jason spent the rest of the night wondering just what the hell Talia had done to the old man.


	5. Don't

Therapy, the three-hour long bane of Jason's life at Arkham.

He spent most of his sessions listening to the ticking clock and thanking every single one of his lucky stars that the place was too understaffed for him to have more than two of them a week.

At first he'd played along, made up stories about his childhood to explain his _'homicidal tendencies'_. He knew enough about psychology to make it look good, believable without really giving anything away. It hadn't taken long to pass all of their psych evaluations and get declared mentally fit enough to stand trial.

Then Bruce had shown up and blown all of his plans out of the water. No, he'd told the Arkham faculty, the Red Hood wasn't sane, he was just manipulating the system to make them think he was.

He'd tried coming up with other plans of escape, each on more vicious than the next. Arson, poisoning, a mass breakout, but he hadn't gone through with any of them. Then came the anti-psychotics and a number of other pills that were supposed to _'help'_ him. His refusal culminating in drugging every piece of food they put in front of him.

Now, more than a year since he'd been brought to Arkham, he was too physically weak and out of the loop to pull off most of those old escape plans.

He was left with three months to get himself out or he'd be stuck in some other prison five times harder to escape from than Gotham's most famous revolving door would ever be.

And all of it had started in that little office with a woman jabbering on about the string of mental disorders some anonymous doctor ( of course he knew it was fucking Batman ) had provided them with.

Jason told himself he didn't care. He wasn't crazy and no amount of medical text books were going to make him believe he was. Wanting to burn the office down was a normal reaction to a place that, with each visit he began tasting another drug in the little food he ate.

He only half listened to the psychiatrist, responding as little as he could get away with while he glared at the camera they thought was so well hidden.

' _Are you happy now Bruce?_ ' He wanted to ask the man who'd stuck him there. _'Is this the help you think I need?'_

"I hear you've been getting regular visits from your sister." The psychologist said, looking at him with that feint smile that made the back of his brain itch. "Do you have anything to say about how that's been affecting you?"

"She's annoying, tell them not to let her in." He said, deliberately undermining her attempts at making eye contact by reading one of the framed certificates on her wall.

"You know, a good support structure could be just the thing you need to start making some progress." She scribbled down something on her note pad. She did that a lot, but Jason swore she was just doodling, she couldn't be reading that deeply into everything he was saying.

"Sure." There was a multicolored bird plush on her desk. It looked ridiculous, like something a senile old woman had knitted in the dark. His eyes must have lingered on the thing for too long, because the shrink noticed.

"Would you like to hold it?" She asked. "It might make you feel better."

"No I don't want to hold it." Jason squared his jaw and shoved down the growl that tried to force itself out with his words. Being treated like a psycho was almost understandable, but if they started treating him like a five-year-old, he was dusting off the plans that involved arson, lots of arson.

She wrote something else down and Jason scoffed. What profound wisdom could she possibly find in him not wanting to play with a toy? She shot him a curios look, but he pretended not to notice.

"That's all for this session." She said, pressing a button next to her desk. "You'll consider what we talked about?"

"Yup, sure." He stood and let the guards escort him out. He had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn't matter. He wasn't staking any of his new plans on outside help, he just wanted the quiet of his cell so he could think and maybe come up with a way to gather the information he needed.

.

.

.

Stephanie was a little more nervous waiting in the guard booth than she had been the last time. When she'd shown up and been told she'd have to wait because he was scheduled for therapy (and no claiming it was a family emergency wouldn't help) she'd wanted to leave right there.

Everyone was so on edge after Talia, then she'd heard that Bruce had shown up to interrogate Jason about it and she'd gotten curios. As far as she knew Jason didn't have any more to do with the league of shadows than the others.

The fact that Bruce had asked her to keep an eye on him since he wouldn't suspect her didn't have anything to do with it.

Waiting would have been a lot easier if she could have done it in the actual waiting room, but visiting hours were over and Schools had said leaving her in the unguarded area was too much of a security risk.

Schools. She could feel the guys eyes ogling her even after she'd draped her cape over herself In a very Batman-esque way. She didn't want to risk not being allowed back in if she left and went back later, so she was stuck having to endure. She made a note not to come around that time on a Tuesday again, and sent a text to Barbara for Jason's schedule just to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

She got out her phone and tried to look professional while playing a game she and Tim had been competing on while she waited. Schools tried to get close enough to talk to her, but she turned her screen away from him and apologized for being too busy to chat with him.

When the doors slid open for the umpteenth time and the creepy guy walked too close to her on his way to do the security check she was just about ready to up and leave.

School's smirk dropped when Jason stepped through, flanked by a pair of anxious looking guards. Steph practically jumped from her seat and skipped over to him.

He arched a twitching eyebrow at her, and she shrugged, her eyes drifting to Schools who's hands were shaking a little when he swiped his keycard to let them through the next door.

Jason rolled his eyes and shifted his feet like she'd just thrust upon him the most tedious task in all of the multi-verse. Even she didn't know what she was asking, or that she'd asked at all until he did it.

Jason paused next to the guard, squaring his shoulders in a way that made him look even taller while Steph peeked out from behind him.

"Don't." Jason said, squeezing his fists so hard his knuckled cracked before he stomped off.

That was all it took to turn the guard into a teary eyes wreck, Schools bottom lip was quivering while he nodded, his eyes almost bulging out of his head. "Y-yes sir."

Jason was halfway to the next door when he had to turn back to his terrified escorts and jerk his head for them to follow.

Stephanie felt a grin practically splitting her face in two when she skipped ahead to walk next to him and they led the way to his cell. As soon as the cell door shut behind them, she burst into a fit of giggles, even if it didn't fix the problem forever, the look on his face had been the most satisfying thing she'd seen all week.

"Oh my god Jason, you are so scary." She let out an exited little squeak. "Did you see his face? Man, I wish I really had a brother like you, do you have any idea how many pervs I wouldn't have to deal with?"

"Whatever Blondie." Jason lay back with his arms tucked behind his head, directing his eyes to his ceiling instead of her, but there was a barely visible twitch of his lip that told her he wasn't as indifferent as he seemed.

"So scary." She whispered and pulled the stool over to her usual spot. "I could just hug you right now."

"Don't you dare." He bit out.

"I said I could, you know if not for the scariness factor. Hey have you ever watched Friday the thirteenth, cause I could swear they had a telepath look to the future and name him after you, you're so scary." She pulled out her homework; Bruce had said doing non-crime-fighting related things around Jason would humanize her or something, she was just happy to have an excuse to finish her schoolwork without them judging her.

"Hey, you won't believe what happened to me and Tim the night Talia was visiting you." She said, propping her books awkwardly on her lap and trying to find some way to position her pens so that they wouldn't roll away.

Jason didn't tense up when she mentioned Talia, but his hand did move a little towards his throat where she noticed a few purple splotches on his pale skin.

"We thought they were setting up a bomb in the Bowery, so me and Red Robin went to defuse it, but we weren't fast enough and it went off. He tried to be all hero-ey and play human shield for me, and the 'bomb'…" She made air-quotes even though he wasn't looking at her, "… went off, but it wasn't really a bomb, or it was but not the explosions kind and everything got covered in this gross smelling orange slime."

"I got some on my shoes too, and I spent the whole night washing them, but I think I can still kinda smell it." Her face scrunched up at the memory. "Red Robin was this close to burning his whole costume till Penny-one offered to get it out for him."

"I took a picture, wanna see?" She asked, getting out her phone and dropping her books to the floor to move closer without waiting for an answer.

Jason cracked open his eyes to look at the picture. His lips curled into a more obvious smirk and Steph's grin widened.

"It's times like those that make this whole Batgirl thing so worth it." She rolled her eyes and stepped back to her books. "Except that now everyone's all uptight about the league of assassins showing up again. Talia's a terrible mother."

"You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand." The underlying emotion in Jason's voice surprised her, he reached down and picked up a pencil that had rolled near his bed.

"Er, right I forgot you were friends or something." Stephanie went back to her stool and gathered her books to her lap just as Jason snagged a loose page off the ground.

"We're not." Jason said, rolling so he was lying on his chest. He pressed the paper on the wall and began drawing a grid. "You know the date?"

"What?" Steph blinked, staring at him like he'd grown a second head, according to some things she'd heard from Dick, that happening wasn't as improbable as some other things.

"Day of the month, Blondie." He repeated, looking at her though his orangey bangs.

"The eighteenth." She said after a few more seconds of staring. "What are you doing?"

"They don't keep calendars where inmates can see them." He replied, filling numbers into his grid.

"That's kind of weird." She cracked open her textbook.

"Hm." He shrugged and stuffed the page and pencil under his pillow before lying down again. "Tell that to Calendar man and Two-face."

She wasn't sure about letting him keep something he could use to stab someone with, but as far as she knew he's never hurt a guard before, and she didn't want to jeopardize him actually acknowledging her existence just yet by asking for it back.

"Do you ever wonder why Gotham gets all the weird villains?" She said, fishing another pencil out of her bag to start on her homework.

"Birds of a feather." Jason said. "Superman fights aliens, Wonder Woman fights legends. You see the pattern."

"You're saying Batman's crazy?" She frowned at him bemusedly.

He looked back at her with an identical expression and brought up his index fingers to make bat ears behind his head.

"Okay, maybe you have a point." Chemistry was one of the easier subjects thanks to the little detective training she had, so she started on that. For a while, the only sound in the room was her pencil scratching along her paper.

Jason looked like he was sleeping again, and she looked up from her work every few minutes to watch him. His face didn't relax completely, that line between his eyes a permanent fixture even when the rest of his body was mostly relaxed.

If she listened to his breathing instead of the other sounds that filtered through, she could almost find it relaxing too. Just doing her homework while he pretended to sleep.

When her chemistry was mostly done, she looked around the little cell again. The others she'd peeked into on her previous visits had some personal touches to them. Colorful blankets or a picture stuck to the wall. The most personal thing in Jason's cell was the bottle of soap she'd seen in the little shower when she'd been looking for his hair dye.

"I bet you get really bored." She said, stuffing her homework back in her bag.

Jason didn't reply, but he did let out a huff that could have been either amusement or annoyance.

"What kind of stuff did you even do when you weren't plotting?" leaned back against her the wall, balancing on the back legs of her stool.

"Not allowed to do anything here." His pillow muffled his words as he rolled over.

She rolled her eyes and lifted her bag off the ground. "Murder and mayhem can't be your only hobbies. Penny-one said you used to like reading."

"I might use the pages to start a fire, or compress them tightly enough to make a weapon."

"You like music?" She tried.

"Nothing with electrical components of any kind."

"Come on if they were that controlling no one would ever break out." She tried to sound flippant when she tapped on the door to leave.

He used his fingers to make the bat ears again. "Can't be too careful with the psycho zombie, huh?"

A feeling she couldn't place settled heavily in the pit of her stomach and didn't quite sit right.

"Night Hood." It was hard to imagine sitting in one room for hours at a time, even with something to keep her occupied, that it was Jason's whole life was a little disconcerting.

He didn't say anything, but she though he she heard a sigh when he shoved his head under his pillow as she left. She chalked it up to Jason being a little less grumpy than usual and blamed it on the therapy. Maybe visiting just after his sessions was a good idea after all.

When she heard the crinkling of paper she just assumed it was him looking at his calendar again.

She was barely out the building and Oracle was in her ear, asking for an update.

"He didn't say anything about Talia." Stephanie said, shooting a look at the foreboding building over her shoulder. "But he's talking again, so there's that if you can think it's helpful."

' _Batman wants you to head to the cave for a briefing.'_

"A briefing?" She frowned, slipping her helmet over her head. "Geez I'm not freaking super-spy behind enemy lines O."

' _As far as he's concerned you might as well be.'_ There was a hint of laughter in Barbara's scrambled voice.

"Fine, I hope he knows he has to feed me if he's gonna keep me there all night." Stephanie sighed in resignation and sped down the narrow bridge back to the mainland and Batman's home base.


	6. Plans

It was supposed to be just another patrol. Granted, a patrol ending with her holding a traumatized child wasn't that out of the ordinary, but the circumstances surrounding that particular case were a little off.

She'd followed a scream into a darkened underground parking lot and found a scene that was disturbing even for the parts of Gotham she regularly patrolled.

A child had run from the only square of light in the place, crashing into Steph in his haste to escape the howling laughter coming from within. With the child in her arms, she couldn't get her night vision goggles on, so she had to fight with only the glint of the blade to guide her.

She'd handled herself pretty well until more and more attackers had shown up, all of the screaming and howling, the sounds echoing around the enclosed space and disorienting her. On her own she could have dealt with them all, no problem, but the child had a death grip on her cape and it was all she could do to keep them both alive until Dick and Damian had shown up.

For a few minutes, she was too grateful for the reprieve to care that she'd needed the help. But once the gang was put down and the light shed on the scene the scene – via Barbara reactivating the power grid – she felt a feeling she tried not to think about creeping up on her again.

She'd almost been shooed away from the crime scene when Dick poked his head into the room, but she'd refused and regretted it as soon as she got a look.

Trying to coax the child into the ambulance minutes later she shuddered at the memory. The only way she could calm herself enough to get her head back into the game was by reminding herself that none of the corpses had been children.

That was still only long enough to make sure the child got to the hospital. Children or not, those had all been people, likely with others who cared about them. Her eyes drifted over to where Damian was curled up atop a fire escape while Dick spoke to some police officers. Dick hadn't let Damian into that room, and she found herself extremely grateful.

For all his boasting, he was still a child, and a sight like that would have undoubtedly scarred him.

Unfortunately, an upsetting patrol wasn't enough in Bruce's eyes for her to go home early.

In retrospect she should have known they'd go overboard when her little side project was upgraded to full on bat-mission status. She'd made her objections, but almost all of them had been shot down. She drew the line at wearing a wire, even when Tim said that Jason probably though she was wearing one all along. If Bruce wanted to listen in on her visits, he'd have to plant his own bugs because she was very attached to her life thank you very much.

"You literal ass." She sighed when she caught sight of the book in Jason's hands.

"You're up late." The look he shot her was unimpressed and he directed it back at the pages quickly enough.

"Yeah well, I had a bad night." She dragged her stool to her corner, not bothering with her homework. "And technically I'm early."

"You find it too stressful; you shouldn't be running around in tights every night." He turned a page.

"Go back to being quiet." She studied the bowl of unappetizing gruel on his desk. "And give me back my book, I have a report due in five days and I haven't finished reading it yet."

"Too damn bad, finder's keepers, Goldilocks." He underlined a sentence and wrote something in the margin before tucking his pencil back behind his ear.

"Asshole. I'm gonna eat your porridge if you don't hand it over."

"Go ahead, I dare ya." His pencil scratched against the page again. "I don't eat that crap anyway."

"Can't be that bad." She lifted the bowl and scooped up a spoonful of its lukewarm contents. He looked at her without turning his head, a challenging glint in his eyes. She put the spoon in her mouth and her gag reflex kicked in almost immediately and she hurried to spit the travesty against food into Jason's little basin.

Mocking laughter filled the cell as Jason threw an arm over his eyes. Stephanie's ears burned even as she rinsed her mouth out with water that tasted vaguely of broccoli "Oh my god what do they put in that?" She dropped the bowl back on the desk and started rinsing her mouth out again. "It's like chalk and…" she gagged, "…licorice. Why didn't you eat the stuff I brought you instead? I think I'm gonna be sick."

"I can't believe you fucking did that, do you even know what they put in there?" He huffed and stuck her book back under his pillow.

"Do I want to?" Stephanie tried to decide if ridding herself of the lingering taste of the porridge was worth another mouthful of the funny tasting water.

His eyebrows drew together and his mouth opened, but he didn't speak for a few moments, until his face went to it's default – I don't know why I haven't killed you yet – expression.

"Yeah, you're definitely not cut out for the vigilante lifestyle." He rolled his eyes and tucked his hands behind his head.

"Argh." She groaned, scrubbing a hand over the lower part of her face. "Can't you be nice just this once."

"Sorry to tell you, but not strangling you is as nice as I get." His eyes narrowed and his mouth curled into a smirk that sent a shiver down her spine.

"You know what, Big Bad Mister Hood; I'm too tired to deal with you tonight." She threw up her hands. "I'm going home."

"Victory." He said, no emotion in his voice while he drew a line on the wall. His eyes flickered to the bowl on his desk. "You might wanna take a day or two off after that."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be back and all that you asshole, and you'd better be done with that book when I am."

Stephanie woke up the next day with one of the worst headaches she'd ever had in her life. Her alarms clocks buzzing might as well have been a screeching siren for her frayed nerves. Even the textures of her blanket and hair scratching against her set her on edge.

She ripped the clock from the wall, smashing it to the ground, and immediately regretted it when the clattering of broken pieces had her convinced for a second that there was something waiting to drag her down the hall. The thought startled her, and she shook her head, blaming the string of horror movies she'd marathoned the last time she'd been laid up.

'I'm okay.' She inched her legs slowly over the edge of her bed, immensely grateful for her soft, fluffy shag carpeting. Gripping the fibers between her toes, she took a series of deep breaths that only made her stomach even queasier.

Stepping off her carpet and onto the tiles in her bathroom was like having her feet stabbed by little shards of ice, the pain lacing up her legs all the way to her thighs. She dropped, her knees hitting the ground in front of her bathroom like a sledgehammer. Somehow she got her body angled to the toilet bowl and emptied the meager contents of her stomach into the bowl. Even that felt worse than it should have, like she'd swallowed fire and brimstone.

Tears blurred her vision and she pulled herself into her shower, trying her best to ignore the jagged edges of the uneven tiles she reached up to turn the faucet on and collapsed against the wall. The water rained down on her like hailstones for a while, but forced herself to endure until she was almost used to it.

When the water was freezing enough that she could blame her shaking in the cold she pulled herself sopping wet out of the shower and to her room. Her baggy sleepwear clung uncomfortably to her skin while flopping frustratingly at the same time.

She made a mental checklist of her symptoms, worried for a while that she'd picked up something from that room, but it only took her a few minutes to rule that out.

"Jason." She grumbled, injecting as much animosity as she could into that word in the vain hope that he'd sense her displeasure all the way in Arkham. The asshole was probably laughing his head off while she lay counting the pieces of her broken alarm clock.

Jason wasn't laughing, no matter how funny that clown tough she was. In fact, he was seriously considering doing something that would make his new plans almost impossible to pull off.

"Aw come on, Hoodie." Quinn cooed, trying to wrap her arms around him from behind.

"Get the hell away from me." He growled, disentangling her arm from him and shoving her away from him.

"Hey!" She hopped up, a rage filled frown in her face that disappeared within seconds, replaced with a smile almost as creepy as the Joker's. "You're a bad boy aren't ya?" She skipped forwards again. "Bet it was your Daddy that taught ya to mouth off like that, huh?"

Jason turned to his back was to the wall, preventing her or any of the freaks watching from sneaking up behind him. "Sure." He tried to look bored, maybe a little irritated at her incessant invasion of his personal space.

It had been a while since he'd had to interact with the psychos, and he wasn't anymore prepared for it than he'd been the last few times.

"Don't worry, we can fix it." She reached out, her expression almost tender but for the glint of madness in her eyes. Jason grabbed her wrist before it she could touch him and she giggled despite his tight grip. "Me an my Mister Jay'll knock those bad manners right out of you when he gets back. Can't have our baby bein' such a brat, no siree."

Nausea swirled in his stomach, for a moment making him wish the Joker was never caught and brought back to Arkham again. That he almost preferred that thing on the streets made took it one step further and he had bile rising up his throat. The shock had him releasing Quinn's wrist and almost breaking his composure.

"Your baby?" He scoffed. "I'd tell you to get your head checked, but considering where we are, it's kind of late for that."

"Hmm." She hummed, rubbing her wrist and looking at him with a disconcerting twinkle in her eyes. "Yeah, we'll take real good care a' ya. After all the trouble you went through to get out attention with Mister Jay's old outfit and all. We're actually kind of hurt that you only came to say hi once. Be seeing ya, Baby." She gave a flighty wave and skipped back to join Isely at the tiny pot plant in a corner.

Jason stood in place, keeping up his glare until the other inmates got the hint that the show was over and dispersed. The his hands balled into fists at his sides so tightly that his nails broke through the skin of his palms.

"Fucking hell." He whispered under his breath, forcing back the panic that had begun creeping up on him. Maybe Talia had a point about him needing to leave sooner rather than later.

"You seem, stressed today." The shrink said, tapping the edge of her table with her pen. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Sister had a bad day." He mumbled offhandedly, his eyes still fixed on the clock.

"Oh." Her professional frown lifted a little, drawing his attention to the wrinkles above her eyes. "You've never spoken about those visits before."

Jason's tongue roamed over the cuts in his mouth, he didn't really remember biting his gums. "Nothing to say." He watched her face shift again.

"I'm sure there is something to say, she must have plenty of exiting things to tell you." Her pen pressed against her notebook, poised to dredge up some meaning from his reaction.

"She's Batgirl." He shrugged, trying to shift into the mindset he'd had the last time he'd convinced her he was sane. "Can't tell you much."

"Hm, that must worry you a lot, your little sister having such a dangerous hobby." The pen's scratching almost drowned out the clock.

"She can take care of herself."

The shrink kept talking with minimal input from him, but Jason paid just enough attention to get the gist of it. For the first time in months, she wasn't talking about new treatments, or tossing around psychiatric jargon that she thought he couldn't understand just for the hell of it.

She was talking about Blondie. It was enough to raise a few flags for Jason, but the only thing he really cared about was that she wasn't talking about him and didn't expect him to answer.

For the remainder of his session he listened carefully to the comings and goings of the guards that walked by the door, casting glances at the clock to mark the times. To his mild surprise they were very similar to the patterns he'd memorized months ago.

If he had to go by guesswork, he'd have said not many of the other security measures had been changed either. As much as he liked people to think it was, going by guesswork wasn't really his style. To piece something together he needed to weigh what he knew against info that was more precise.

As he was led out of the office, he watched the halls he passed though his long bangs, making sure his memory hadn't been overly scrambled by his long stay.

More precise info. He held the thought while he scribbled down an abstract of the asylums layout on the back of his calendar.

Maybe having the bat-backing wasn't so bad after all. Steph didn't even have to be sneaky about getting a copy of Jason's schedule, all she'd had to do was ask, really, that was it. And she could show up whenever she wanted without having to put up with the overly long check through.

For the first time in weeks she'd brought something edible along with her and a new plan. Even of she had to stay up freakishly late to make it work.

She arrived around the same time as she had her last visit, just in time to get to Jason's porridge before he did.

"Before you ask, yes I'm still really mad that you didn't tell me what was in this stuff." She looked him over, but his eyes were fixed on her book.

"Sensory overload sucks huh?" He brought the tip of his stolen pencil to his lips.

"Yeah it sucks, I still had to go on patrol that night, because everyone thought I was just freaked out by the case." That had been annoying. Especially because she couldn't tell them what was really wrong without telling them that she'd been dumb enough willingly put Arkham food in her mouth. "But I guess you're right about not expecting you to be nice."

She lifted the bowl from the desk, and this drew his attention from the book. The look on his face was almost incredulous, but he didn't do anything to stop her.

"No, I'm not eating it again." She tossed the contents of the bowl down the drain and rinsed it out. "And since you don't eat it anyway, no one'll yell at me for throwing away your medicine. Now close your eyes or look away or something."

He did, shifting his attention back to the book, _her_ book.

She stomped down her frustration again and pulled a pack of cereal out of her bag, along with a flask of milk. The refilled bowl was set back on his desk in the exact same position as she'd found it.

"There, now you can pretend the lunch ladies forgot to put that gross stuff in it." She said, gesturing proudly to her work while trying to stifle a yawn.

Jason's snort sounded suspiciously close to a laugh, and his lips curled up for a second before he turned a blank stare in her.

"I poisoned you, and you're still doing this?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, we've already established that you're an asshole, but you're an asshole with my book, and I need it back for school remember, so I'm hoping I can make you a little less of an asshole."

He looked her in the eye while he wrote something else in the book.

"I brought this along too." She got out another book, this one some French title that Alfred said the second Robin had liked. She tossed the book in the air and caught it with a smirk. "So let's negotiate, huh?"

Jason looked at her for a second, then his eyes roamed over to the bowl, and the book before stopping at her again.

"You have any more problems with Scholz?" He asked, shutting the book, but keeping a firm hold on it with one hand.

Steph was taken aback by the question, Jason never asked her questions and she was immediately suspicious. "Did you do something to him?" Her eyes narrowed and flickered around the room, half-expecting to see a body part stashed somewhere.

"No. God Blondie, now who's being fucking morbid?" He looked genuinely offended, and cracked the book open with a frown, angrily going back to writing.

She still felt the need to check that the creep was still kicking, but Bruce would tell her if Jason had killed someone recently, right? That was if Bruce even knew. Wasn't he supposed to know everything? That just brought her back to the question of him telling her. He wouldn't want to scare her off going to Arkham though, would he? Her train of thought ran in circles for a few minutes while Jason kept reading on reading like she wasn't struggling with a question that was, unanswerable without leaving.

"I haven't come during his shifts since last time." She said eventually, flipping the pages of the book she was holding. "You wanna trade books."

"You aren't scared of getting my creepy serial killer germs all over your hands?" He almost spat the words out, a sharp contrast to the calm on his face.

She refrained from pointing out how if he hadn't become a serial killer he wouldn't have the creepy serial killer germs to begin with, but she wasn't going to shut away her suspicions until she knew that Schools was alive.

"So you don't want…" She read over the title of the book and decided not to chance reading it aloud. "This thing?" She held it over him.

He lifted an arm, and she was pretty sure he was going to hit the book out of her hand, but he slowed down right before the strike would have connected and plucked the book out of her hands, holding out _'Oliver Twist'_ in its place.

She gingerly accepted the book, and tucked it into her bag while he started reading the French one in silence.

"So, I was uh, bodyguarding this kid tonight." She pulled the chair to her corner, more for something to do than that she really wanted to sit. "It's, we found him the other night. Well I found him, and he's scared of the others, so I'm watching him after hours. He's the only witness we have, but he's too scared to talk, Red Robin says he'd selectively mute, cause of the shock, you know?"

"You allowed to talk about your casework?" Jason asked, a confrontational edge to his voice.

"They don't tell me what to talk about." She pulled up a spark of the anger she'd felt earlier and tried to glare at him. She gave that up when her response didn't get anymore that a scoff from him. With a sigh she checked the time. Still early enough that she could get a few hours of sleep before her first class if she made left right then.

"And if they did tell me what to talk about, I'd just say the exact opposite anyway, 'cause that's kinda my M.O"

"Just get the fuck to bed before you pass out in my cell." He said. "I don't want them banging down my door for drugging you."

"Okay, fine, I'm going, but not because you told me to." She yawned before jumping to her feet. Why did it have to be his breakfast that was drugged? Any other meal and her plan would have been so much easier to pull off.

"Sure." He drew a line on the wall besides the one he'd made on her last visit.

"That'd better not be a tally." She said in lieu of a goodbye.

The next day she got up two hours before her classes started so she could make some headway in reading 'Oliver Twist'. She was surprised when she found there wasn't a page that didn't have some notation in its margins.

There were notes on the commentary that Jason must have found interesting and all the old timey words were underlined, with a neat line leading to the definition along with a bunch on synonyms.

By the time she went to class, she hadn't gotten very far with the actual reading assignment, her attention too drawn to the little notes Jason had left behind.


	7. Cards

The frown on the shrinks face was a cross between that of a supervillian who'd just been foiled and a disinterested teacher who just wanted that disobedient child out of her class as soon as possible.

"I was hoping you were becoming more responsive." She pushed her wire rimmed glassed up her nose.

And Jason was hoping she'd be so deep in the belief he was that she wouldn't notice just how much he'd zoned out while she prattled on about Blondie's visits. Oh, the unfairness of the world that refused to give all things to all people.

"Batgirl keeps me up at night." He shrugged. "Maybe if I didn't have to go to the lounge so early everyday…" He held up his shackled hands helplessly.

"Your anti-social behavior is another that's been escalating as of late." Her sigh sounded more like a gurgling of air that the breathy expression of exasperation it was supposed to be.

A few weeks ago that sound would have spiked up a little worry, but he was fairly certain he wouldn't be around to feel any long term effects of her frustration with him.

"Would you want to be in a room with that clown?" He shot back, resisting the urge to role his eyes. Harley Quinn was pushing her luck with him more and more every day, and unlike his know it all shrink, he was pretty sure the Joker's deranged girlfriend was something to be very worried about indeed. Too bad she was a tiny woman and he looked like a thug straight out of an action movie.

Maybe Talia had a point about him putting on a different show working in his favor. John Doe, age twenty-five _'criminally insane'_ with anger issues couldn't get away with half as much as some of the other personas he'd adopted had.

Then again, avoiding a lecture from someone who thought they knew what they were talking about when they told him off for decking that annoying clown wasn't really worth the added trouble he'd have to go through when he got out.

The clock ticked along across from him while she carried on and on. It almost reminded him of that one time Dick had tried to lecture him back in the day; he couldn't really remember what it was bout, but he was sure it had about as much of an effect on him as his shrink did.

Forty minutes to go. He shifted his gaze around the room, going from the bookshelves that he'd be willing to bet was only there for show and the framed certificated on the wall, back to that ugly plush thing on the desk.

By his estimate, he'd have only a handful of sessions in that office, no matter how things went.

"What?" He asked when he caught her hand sliding over the neatly stacked papers on her desk towards him.

"A few sessions ago we spoke about the ramifications of your inability to comply with asylums protocols and you said you'd take my council to heart." There was a tilt to her mouth that made him decidedly uncomfortable.

It would have been smarter to nod along and promise to work on whatever the hell she was yapping on about, but that had gotten him nowhere in the months since his appeals had been shot down, and he was sick of playing along.

"Yeah, I remember that." His barring of teeth was only a smirk in the broadest term of the word, immediately pulling her out of her relaxed posture. "And I took to heart like that your 'protocol' is complete bullshit."

The way her face screwed up at that told him how badly he'd just fucked up, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. His smirk stayed in place while her frown twisted so far down he could have almost sworn her face was made from rubber.

The air of satisfaction, childish as it was clung to him for that last half hour. Her twitching made it clear that she only kept him there because she had to and she was as eager to get him out of her office as he was to leave.

Her pager beeped and she kept watching him while she reached down to bring it up, her eyes left him for only a second to read the thing.

"We'll be cutting this session short so I can meet with the director." She said evenly.

"By a full five minutes, wow." Jason waved his hands in mock excitement.

"Every minute counts." She smiled, the gesture actually reaching her eyes this time, and not in a good way, while a pair of guards came to escort him from the office. Jason felt a tension building in his chest that he usually only got when he was in that lounge. He was already out the door when she called out. "If you're curios we'll be setting up a date where you can speak with him and share your grievances personally."

The door slid shut before Jason could say anything, not that he would have if it hadn't. The guards didn't go right to his cell, instead marching him past the lounge again first, and despite his reluctance, Jason's eyes found the more heavily drugged inmates shambling from one end of the room to the other.

He followed their sluggish movements, took note of their empty eyes. His mind retained the mental image even after they'd passed by and gone back to the cell block.

When his door slid shut, Jason knocked his head against the thing with a metallic thud before he slid to the ground.

"Fuck it." He sighed, crunching the numbers to see by just how much he could speed up his timetable. The answer was not very much at all. He knocked his head against the door again, hard enough to rattle his teeth. "Fuck it."

.

.

.

The bodies had been cleared from the room, but the musk of rotting flesh remained. It wasn't exactly the kind of smell that could be covered up by some lemon-scented cleanser and the need to preserve what was left of the crime scene eradicated even that option.

Steph pushed her lips out so she could get a whiff of her berry lip-balm instead and got to work.

The other Bats didn't want her involved. Bruce said she was emotionally compromised, which made pretty much zero sense seeing how her only real connection to the case was the little kid she'd visited a couple of times in the hospital before they found his parents – both of whom were thankfully alive and not involved in the whole mess. The kid had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and her visits had been more for cheering him up than that she thought he'd know anything useful.

Know something useful he did though, even if the others were too busy 'looking at the bigger picture' to think so.

She stepped around the coagulated patches of sticky blood on her way through, scrapping the stuff out of her boots would have been a pain almost on par with the whole 'disturbing the crime scene' talk she'd get if she messed up. In her opinion, the CSI guys had already disturbed the scene plenty with their chalk outlines and myriad footprints.

Most of the bodies hadn't even been identified and the official law enforcement didn't really care to find out who they all were. Happy to leave the whole grisly mess to Batman, who wouldn't tell her anything about the case.

"Compromised." She scoffed, bending to examine the bases of all the walls, sliding her penlight along and taking note of the miniscule splatters of blood. "I'm not some kid that can't handle a little blood. I don't even know any of those people."

' _They like hoarding there cases, you shouldn't take it so personally.'_

"Huh." Steph scoffed. "That'd only help great if you'd tell me something O." She studied a wall that was a little more smudged than the others, and deep enough in that the smell almost made her gag. She fought that urge and tilted her head, bending down until her cheek was almost touching the gory floor.

Barbara didn't even try to pretend she knew no more about the case than Steph, and while the girl was grateful for that at least, she couldn't quite stomp out her displeasure at being shut out of yet another case.

She scraped away a layer of blood with the tip of her finger, revealing another, less recent stain underneath.

"Fine." Steph smirked, snapping a picture and looking around the room for anything similar. She didn't need them to figure out what was going on. She was a detective too after all, they could chase after the al Ghuls while she solved the case herself.

A loud scraping followed by retreating footsteps echoing through from the empty parking lot drew her from her investigation. Steph was on her feet and chasing after as fast as she could.

"Chasing a badguy." She said when Barbara asked if she'd found anything new.

The guy wasn't any faster than the other dozen thugs she'd chased down that night already, but his escape route did raise a few red flags.

"There any other exits to this place?" She asked breathlessly.

' _Not that way.'_ The audio distortion made it hard to pick out Barbara's tone of voice, but the pause wasn't as easy to mask.

"What is it?" Steph lost sight of the guy for a second when he turned a corner and she sped up, eager to catch him before he could sneak out of her reach.

' _Trap, get out and wait for backup.'_

Barbara hadn't even finished talking when Steph had to twist away from the rod that sprang up from the darkness, a cry of surprise on her lips. She made a full turn on her heel and brought a hand to her chest for a second, taking in a deep breath.

"Too late." She flexed her fingers and reached for her gooperangs. More footsteps echoed in the darkness, as she slipped her night vision goggled over her cowl.

' _Red Robin en route._ ' Tim's voice wasn't scrambled the way Barbara's was, but it still sounded almost as even. _'Stall.'_

She almost didn't duck the first swing, getting the goggles onto place having taken up those precious few seconds.

"Hey!" She grabbed the next weapon that came and her and pulled its holder off balance with a sharp tug, pushing back again to whack the guy over the head with his own baseball bat. "I didn't say I was ready."

"Well we're ready." A scrawny guy said, swinging a chain at her, she tangled him up in it and spun around, using him to block the tire iron that came at her from behind.

"Couldn't tell by looking at you." She ducked low to the ground and struck out with a spinning kick to knock over the thugs closest to her. And electric gooperang flew and the echo of cries told her it had hit its mark. "Maybe I'm just confused, what exactly are you ready for?"

She was surprised to only see two thugs standing, one charges at her while the other went behind a pillar and disappeared from view. Her hand connected with his chest as she ducked and used his momentum to toss him over her shoulder.

He landed in an undignified heap with a fleshy thump, his weapon clicking loudly to the floor after him. Amid the groaning she paused to get a look at the five guys sprawled out all around her

"That all?" She blinked a few times to taker in the sight. Normally ambushes ended with a little more pain on her end. With a shrug, she reached down to pull the smallest of the thugs to his feet. "Hey, you wanna tell me why you guys are hanging around a crime scene."

"Has a message." He slurred, his eyes flicking fearfully around in the darkness.

"For who? I'm a great messenger." She didn't bother trying to look threatening when all of her attackers were immobile or had their own night gear smashed, turned out they were lucky.

Every light in the parking lot flashed on, the sudden brightness magnified by her goggles to a painfully blinding glare. She cried out and dropped the thug, hands scrambling to wrench the equipment off her head while fast paced footsteps approached from behind.

Before she had the chance to react, her face met something really, really hard, the pain itself was almost enough to knock her off balance completely. Her back to a wall, she tried to see through narrowed eyes while someone chuckled.

"Glad to hears it. We got a message fors your big bro in Arkham."

"Argh." Stephanie groaned loudly, shocking the man into taking a step back. She tuned out Barbara and Tim's attempts at communication and hung her head, out of exasperation more than the considerable pain and blood trickling from her nose. "I'm getting real sick of you creeps trying to get at that asshole through me."

Her vision was blurry, but she approached the man as steadily as she could, her fists balled at her side. The man stumbled back, sweat dripping from his pale flesh.

"Never mind the Hood, if my nose it broken, I'm tracking you down and turning you into a ball of mush." She pulled back a fist and crashed it into the guy's face before she'd even noticed he was nodding along. "Asshole."

' _Batgirl, are you okay? I'm a block away.'_

"Situation contained Tim. Get the cops." She brushed the blood away from her nose with a growl. "I'm going home to chew my way through a bottle of aspirin."

.

.

.

When Jason's fists reaction upon seeing her was to burst out in laughter while throwing an arm over his eyes she was less than impressed.

She stood with her arms folded across her chest as she stared him down. The sound died down after a minute, but when he lowered his arm and got another look at her, it returned to shielding his face while the laughter started anew.

"Get it out of your system." She said evenly, pulling a few boxes out of her bag.

He peeked over his arm again. "Jesus, you look like a fucking raccoon." He said through his chuckles. Almost anyone else and she would have smacked him upside his head. Still, it was better than the 'I told you to wait's' and guilty looks she'd gotten from Barbara and Tim.

"Did you have to make every thug in Gotham hate you?" She asked as she emptied out his porridge bowl.

"I told it was a stupid fucking idea to say you were my sister." He shot another look at her and his laughter continued, his whole body shaking with his mirth.

Steph was stunned for a moment by how young it made him look, or more like how much his actual age it made him look before she slammed down the refilled bowl.

"I hate you." She grumbled and tore open a pack of cards.

It just made his laugh harder for a bit before it turned into soft chuckled and eventually died down with a tired sigh. "Fuck, this is gonna be a huge problem when I get out." His eyes shot up to meet hers before he looked off into the distance, a small frown on his face.

"Your cute little notes about the Artful Dodger are more humanizing that having a sister." She rolled her eyes and emptied a few boxes of skittles on his desk.

For a second she could have sworn the tips of his ears turned red, then he sat up and fixed his eyes on the colorful arrangement on his desk. "Anyone see's those and I'll mail your fingers to your mother."

"Stop threatening to mail pieces of me to my mother." Steph divided up the skittles, doing her best to ignore the headache pounding behind her eyes. "It's not scary anymore and I'm too tired to pretend it is."

A frown spread over his face and he picked up his book, flipping through it with an absent frown. He was silent while she created two neat piles of candy and turned to stare at him expectantly. He seemed not to notice her for a few more minutes; his eyes roving over pages that turned too fast for him have really been reading them.

"Hey." She gently nudged him with her bo-staff.

"What?" He scowled at her, still looking a little dazed.

She shuffled the cards and dealt him five with a flourish. Instead of her usual corner, she dragged her stool to the other side of her desk. She looked sat down and looked over her own cards, discarding three and looking over at him expectantly.

"Poker." She said. "I got no homework and you read that book a zillion times."

"You want me to play cards with you." He said slowly, eyeing his cards suspiciously, one eyebrow quirking behind his long bangs. "For skittles?"

"Yeah." She nodded with a smile, starting to feel the effects of the many painkillers she'd taken. From the few visits she'd made to her father when she'd been younger she knew smokes and other, less legal things were common prison currency. She remembered trying to sneak some in once and being caught for it, confused as to why the prison guards were so mad at her for doing what her parents asked. There was no way she was doing that again, even if she could get away with it as Batgirl.

Besides, crazy as he was, she didn't think Jason would appreciate anyone insinuating he was a junky.

It took him way longer than should have been possible to pick up the cards, and he turned them over slowly, like he was expecting some kind of trick.

"Three." He said, handing over the cards and watching pensively while she took them and handed over the replacements.

She looked over her cards and studied his blank expression before pushing ten skittles to the center of the table. He inched the same number to her little pile.

"Three kings." She declared, flipping her cards around.

"Full house." He held his out to her.

Steph grumbled under her breath and pushed the skittles to his side of the table before returning the cards to the deck and shuffling again.

"I got a B minus on my book report." She said as she dealt them each a new hand. "He called me out on cheating, but he couldn't prove it."

"Guess how many fucks I give." He handed her two cards.

"All of them." She shook off his bad attitude and matched his bet of twenty-five skittles. "You're the one I cheated off, now I feel bad." She didn't say she also maybe felt a tiny bit bad for thinking he'd killed Schools, seeing as she was sure he's just get mad and he had kind of threatened the guy.

"How…?" His brows knitted together for a moment before he turned his somewhat incredulous look at her. "And you got a B minus? Your teachers must be as blonde as you."

"Oh, here come the blonde jokes, funny." She deadpanned, counting out her skittles. "I'd call a soulless ginger, but that'd only be half true."

"I don't fucking dye my hair, now stop implying that before I destroy you!" He clutched the cards in his hands tightly enough to bend them.

She made a show of squinting her eyes and leaning forwards before bringing a hand up to point at is hair, stopping just short of touching him. "Yeah…" she drawled, "your roots are showing."

"Shut up!" He smacked her hand away, his own twitching towards his hair.

She chuckled, heedless of the glare he sent her way while she showed him her cards.

"You're lucky this table's between us." He growled, tossing his own cards over to her and turning away from the game.

"Sore loser." She accused, collecting them and shuffling the deck again before adding the wagered skittles to her pile. She kept her tone light and dealt out the cards again, fully expecting him to ignore her in favor of the book.

He grumbled under his breath, but took up the cards again, albeit with the air of a martyr pressing the trigger to his own execution. "I swear, this fucking place. Keep letting you in here and still expect me not to go on a killing spree."

She rolled her eyes, to cover up her surprise and refrained from calling him a drama queen.

While they played she told him about the poker tournaments she'd participated in – and won many a time – back at the Gotham U. At first he was decidedly unimpressed, but near the end he began to smirk while she looked on in horror as her pile of skittles grew smaller and smaller while he kept he hardly even looked at his cards, keeping his eyes at some point behind her instead.

By the time she was left with only a handful of the candy, he looked almost not-angry.

"I was the champion." She muttered sullenly with a put upon sigh while he swept up half of her remaining skittles. "You can't be that good at poker, I bet you cheated."

She meant it as a joke, but his eyes widened and he failed to hide his shark-like grin behind a handful of candy. Her jaw dropped and she caught his eyes darting to that same point behind her again. "No." She said.

"Sore loser." He scoffed as she spun around.

Her open gape was reflected at her in the glass of the shower at her back.

"You cheated!" She most definitely did not pout while her knuckles turned while from the tight grip she held on her last skittles. "Give those back!" Her free hand shot in an attempt to reclaim the candy.

"I used the environment to my advantage." He shot back, shielding his ill gotten gains with one arm and pushing her back with the other.

"Hood, you asshole!" She growled, straining to reach the candy with her shorter arms while he gripped her head in one of his hands. Eventually she groaned and gave up, her arms falling limply to her sides. "One more game." She held up a finger. "Winner takes all."

"I don't want those." His face scrunched up in distaste at the half-melted candy in her hand.

"You didn't want any of the food I brought over before!" She shot back.

"My skittles." He said, wrapping both arms protectively around the colorful pile.

"Fine, I'll bet something else." She folded her arms. "Another book, any book you want."

That skeptical frown was back, and he looked at her contemplatively for a while. "Fine. I'll deal." He took the cards from her side of the desk and shuffled them for a while before cutting them, first in halves then quarters. His hands moved quickly, merging the cards and splitting them up again the way she'd seen the dealers do on late night reruns of poker tournaments.

"Show off." She muttered, getting a smirk in return as she slid her cards over, making sure to stand where he couldn't see them. "Okay, how bout, if I win, you have to answer a question and you can keep the skittles."

"You won't." He said, tossing away one card.

"Say I do." She pressed, holding her hands to her chest.

"Fine." His pushed his hair away from his face.

"One." She put up the card and held out a hand for a replacement. Slowly she dragged the card across the table, lifting just one corer to peer at the letter. Her chest tightened just a little, but she kept her face neutral.

"Straight." Jason laid his cards across the table with a smirk.

Steph put down her own cards one by one, starting with the ace of spades. With every card she revealed his smirk dropped a bit, king of spades, queen of spades, jack of spades.

"No." The word came out in what on anyone else she might have called a disbelieving gasp.

Her own smirk curled her lips as she flipped over the last card, ten of diamonds. "I still win."

All the tension drained from his posture and he sagged almost boneless against the wall, his teal eyes fixed on the cards. She almost thought she saw his lips twitch up, but it was covered over quickly by a scowl when he fixed those same eyes on her.

"You'd better not ask about my hair." He warned.

"Why did Talia visit you?" She blurted out the question before she could really process it, looking resolutely at the skittles on his desk.

Jason's eyes widened and he blinked owlishly at her. His hands came up again and he looked down at them while alternating between clenching and unclenching his fists. Then his eyes furrowed together and she was sure he would refuse to answer, but he let out what might have been a sigh had it been louder, and if possible his body grew even more limp.

"Tea." He said eventually, and Stephanie's eyes shot towards him, but he wasn't looking her way, laying on his bed, gazing at the ceiling with an empty stare. "And she told me to shave."

Steph chuckled nervously and nudged his foot with her own. "Come on, you're supposed to be serious here."

He didn't glare at her, or threaten her, but the look he sent her way somehow made her feel worse than if he had. She dropped down onto her stool and gathered up the cards again, shuffling them slowly while trying to pin point the source of the current tension in the cell. Angry Jason she could deal with, she didn't know what Jason she was dealing with right then and that kind of scared her in some nonsensical way.

"Hey." She said softly, shrinking a little when he didn't look at her. "How _'do'_ you shave when you're not allowed to have a razor?"

He lifted his head and his face scrunched up in that not-angry, skeptical way again. She shrugged and held up her hands before folding them over. While she'd never seen completely clean shaven in any of her visits, she also knew he couldn't have that perpetual stubble naturally.

"I have a whole hour left to wait for an answer." She reached slowly for his skittles.

He was up in a flash chopping down to protect them. "That question goes in the same pit as the one about my hair."

She held up her threw up her hands in surrender before lacing them in front of her to pillow her chin. "You admit there's a question about your hair?" At his suddenly ferocious glare she her face split in a wide, probably not as innocent grin as she was going for. "So what do you wanna do now?"

He poured a handful of skittles into his mouth and chewed slowly, his glare slowly morphing into an almost confused frown. "I just remembered I hate skittles."

"Goodnight Hood." Stephanie rolled her eyes and got her bag, leaving the cards on the desk when she marched to the door. She had a minor painkiller overdose to sleep off.


	8. Risk

The stiff paper rustled and clicked, filling the otherwise quiet cell with a sense of something he couldn't put a name to. The camera blinked in the corner, an ever present reminder of his position.

God he wished he could turn away from that light, blink, blink, blink. Funny thing was, it wouldn't have been so bad if the blinks had been consistent, like they'd been before. Sometime in the past few days he'd pissed off one too many people, and they thought it was the only punishment they could get away with.

It made him resentful on two levels, an insult on top of the screwing over of his already erratic sleep schedule. Visits to the lounge were also longer, and more of the freaks were paying attention to him, spurred on by Quinn's interest.

Shaking the feeling that they were planning something else, he tried to focus only on the cards he couldn't see in the dark. He shuffled the deck of cards, cutting them and performing sleight of hand tricks for his nonexistent audience.

The small weight was a small comfort, the familiar, of oft-unused motions of his hands allowing him to bleed off some of the unwanted energy lurking beneath his skin while going over the information he'd already gathered did the same for his mind.

His schedule was the same as it had been since he'd first gotten to the asylum. Guard rotations had changed, but only the names. (Two names in particular he wouldn't mind making special plans for – candy thieves.) The layout hadn't changed despite an unsettling amount of breakouts and his no new security measure of any worth had been installed.

There were only a few things he needed, and a few hours of unbroken sleep before he could set anything in motion. A few nights ago he'd tried s light workout and been appalled at how far he'd slipped, that ruled out enough potential plans without adding sleep deprivation to the list.

Damn camera.

He considered flipping the thing off, but there was no guarantee of anyone watching right then and he didn't want to waste the energy on something that pointless.

Cards moved between his fingers and he watched it, the little light blinking away on him. Another sound added to the scratching of paper, but he didn't turn towards it until the door slid open.

"You said I had three months." He said, the smell of honey and spice filling the cell.

x

x

x

' _Batgirl, just…'_

"Don't tell me to calm down O." Steph slammed her fist into a ninja's – yes Tim she was calling them ninjas, she didn't care what the technical term was – face, pulling down his mask in the process. A cloud of knockout gas took him out and stepped over his limp form, still steaming.

It wasn't night of the ninjas that had her all riled up, but what she'd caught those ninjas doing specifically. She knew from personal experience that gang wars were bloody and painful, and just no fun for anyone involved, yet Bruce didn't deem the risk high enough to get involved personally.

A distraction, he said. Like that meant it would be any less of a catastrophe if the thing did break out.

Focus on the league, there's always something more going on beneath the surface with them. They'd barely looked at the evidence she'd scraped together before deciding it wasn't important enough to investigate further and sent her to play ninja tag while they looked for the ringleader.

Like everyone in the whole Batman Incorporated thing, she was expected to shut up and follow their master plan. Well, she had her own cases to work on, cases that had nothing to do with ninjas or al Ghuls and it was just pretty freaking rude of them to make her drop everything for them when they wouldn't even look at a little picture and tell her if it had something to do with a potential freaking gang war in the city they all said they loved so much.

' _Someone's hacked the camera in Hood's cell.'_

It was kind of funny how Barbara's voice could startle Steph out of her thoughts more effectively than the scream of the thug rolling on the ground clutching his crotch.

' _Who is it?'_ Bruce's voice was even more gruff than usual.

' _Switching to auxiliary.'_

"Wait, you have extra cameras in his cell?" Steph asked, any amusement she felt art watching the whimpering thug whittling away. "You guys are super creepy."

Dicks words were cut off by the curse Barbara hissed out.

' _It's her. Patching to all vehicles.'_

Steph hopped over the thug in her haste to reach her cycle. With just a second of hesitation she flicked the mounted screen on, she ignored her unease, choosing to instead focus on the fact that hers was included in the _'all vehicles'_ group.

Talia sat stood at the foot of the bed, her face turned away from the camera, but it was pretty clear by the way Jason watched her that she was talking.

While Bruce asked about audio, Steph looked at the way Jason was sitting.

There was no slouch in his posture, but he didn't have that crease between his eyes either, and he slowly dipped something in the little tea cup he was holding, nodding along to whatever Talia was saying.

Jason reached for one of what Steph would guess were cookies sitting on a tray, but Talia was suddenly in front of him, gripping his wrist in one hand. Jason's only reaction was to frown as he let her turn his arm over for a second before he tugged it back.

Jason said something and Talia shook her head. She patted the side of Jason's face before she made a motion with her hand and a group of ninjas strode into the room. They gathered up the tea set, but left the tray behind, Talia following after.

Barbara hadn't been able to get any audio, and Bruce didn't get to the asylum fast enough to catch Talia before she left. Steph wasn't sure why that made her glad.

x

x

x

The tiny stub that was all Jason had left on his pencil scrapped against the pages of the book that he found so much more interested in than the girl dressed as a giant bat standing in his cell.

"What happened to the cards?" She asked, dropping her bag at her feet.

The pencil slipped from his fingers and he cursed before taking it up again and looking at the piece of wood like it had insulted his mother. Steph wondered how he had sharpened it down to that length when he wasn't allowed any sharp edges.

She was supposed to be asking him about Talia, but she couldn't find a way to do it that didn't end with her face getting bashed in. Or maybe she was just at loss as to how she was supposed to deal with him without that weird guilty feeling that she was sure she shouldn't have felt creeping up her chest again.

"Hoooood." She stage whispered, a grin spreading across her face as she noted the way his eyebrows twitched.

"I didn't kill anyone, leave me alone." He said, giving up on the pencil, he tossed it at her forehead with a flick of his fingers.

"Ow! Hey!" One of her hands flew up to the point of impact. It hadn't hurt, but that didn't mean it wasn't a shock to have tiny projectiles thrown at her face.

His eyes roamed to the camera in the corner of his cell and he cut his chuckle short, snapping his book shut. "Just ask what you came to ask already." He pushed a handful of hair away from his face.

"Fine, are you planning domination, world or otherwise with Talia al Ghul?" Steph asked, kicking the little pencil stub at her feet across the cell,

"No."

"Great." She dragged her stool to her corner and pulled out her homework. Chem, Math, English, she flipped through her various soon-to-be overdue subjects and wondered which one she'd needed the grade most on.

The good grade she'd gotten on her book report pushed English down a bit lower on her priority list, and she had a really long back log of chemistry to work through, but she was kind of worried she'd flunk math if she relied on her final exam to carry her through.

She reached into the bag for another stack of papers, but her fingers closed around another book instead. She waited for him to turn away before she pulled the book out and threw it at him.

His hand shot out, grabbing the book before it could fly into his bemused face. "Fuck! What are you doing?" Jason sat up fully, his face scrunched up while the spine of his book creaked in his hands.

"Haven't figured it out yet." She said, going through the assignments again. The way things were going lately, she doubted she'd have time to make a passing grade anyway, so did it really matter what she finished? She felt Jason's piercing gaze on her while she tapped a glittery pencil against her lip. "What?" She asked twirling the pencil.

"Nothing." He settled back down slowly, his eyes flickering back to her every few seconds as he began paging through his new book.

"Have you read that one?" She asked, looking up from the paper.

"What'd Batman do to piss you off?" He ran his fingertips along the title _'Crime and Punishment'_ embossed on the soft cover.

"Nothing." She turned back to her school work, idly playing with the stapled corners. "It's just, the league of shadows isn't Gotham's only problem, ya know? I get they're a big deal, but he just zeroes in on that one thing and expects us to do the same. I find a lead and he says it's not important enough, even when a freaky ninja says it is. I mean, I bet if Tim found it, he'd… " she looked up at Jason's non-committal frown and sighed. "Nevermind."

"What's the lead?"

"What?" Her head snapped towards him so fast she almost got whiplash.

"What'd ya find?" He flipped to the front of the book, and trailed a finger over the lines of words as he read.

"A crest I think, from a ring or something." She got out the digital camera she used for casework and pulled up the picture. "See." She turned the screen to show him.

He squinted to see the picture from across the room. "Where'd ya find that?"

"In a room full of dead people." She blinked at the growl that prompted from the grouchy boy and shrugged to show she was serious.

"Fuck, only in Gotham." He pushed his hair away from his face again and she got a glimpse of his red tinted ears. "You find the guy who had it on him?"

"No, we don't really know who most of them are, were." She gave herself a mental shake to get the image out of her head before she continued. "The, the uh, victims…" that was a good word to use for that right? Jason grunted impatiently and she decided it would just have to do. "The victims were too badly…" She made a few chopping motions with her free hand. "… for us to identify, well most of them."

Jason scrubbed a hand over his face and shut the book.

"You know what it is?" She asked, tucking the camera away and leaning anxiously.

"I have an idea." His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth and his hands twitched before he pulled the book closer towards himself and looked at the door.

He was quiet long enough for tension to spread throughout the room. Steph gathered up her books, pretty sure that was all she was going to get out of him until he spoke again.

"It's a broche, not as fancy as it looks, but one side was melted away in a meth explosion. Fucker still wore it, thought it made him look tough." He was running his fingers along his book again, studying the cover like it held all the answers of the universe.

"So, you knew him?" Steph asked nervously, thinking of the grisly scene she'd found that night, no way those deaths had been painless. If she found out that one of her friends had been there she doubted she'd ever have a good night's sleep again.

"I know what you're thinking, stop." He chuckled darkly, that same sound that had her convinced he was going to jump up and kill someone. "Whatever happened, the bastard deserved it maybe worse." He brushed a hand over his mouth. "Was a pimp in the narrows, been operating for years." He sent looked at her, cold fury pouting from his narrowed eyes. "Specialty was kids."

Steph hugged her books to her chest, trying to protect her heart from the ice she could feel creeping into her veins. "You, so, you know his name?"

"Jan Rizzo." He spoke the name like a curse. "Guy's out for his head woulda been a mile long." He plucked the spoon out of his cereal bowl and began tapping it against his knee.

"Yeah but, Jay, there were a lot of them, like a real lot. You think he'd a been there if it was a hit?" She pointed at him with her pencil.

"Mighta been, if there was more than one gang involved." He laid back on his bed, and poked his cheek with his tongue. "Mighta been a power play 'f its someone new."

"And I bet Mister Crime Lord knows who?" Steph clasped her hands in front of her hopefully.

"Tch, no." Jason scoffed, lacing his hands behind his head. "I've been on lockdown for nine months."

"Oh." She tossed her schoolwork into her bag, she'd given up on getting any work done that night, and she didn't want to risk leaving something behind like she had the 'Oliver Twist' book. Her sparkly pencil rolled off her lap and fell to the floor, clattering loudly against the tiles as it rolled towards the door, bumping into the useless stub of Jason's pencil.

She hesitated before picking it up, her hand resting above for a second before she plucked it up off the ground and made the snap decision to pocket the stub.

She threw him her pencil and he caught it effortlessly. "Thank for you help anyway."

He looked at the pencil, rolling it around between two fingers and watching the light play off it's surface, leaving little blips of pink-tinted light playing across his face and the nearby wall like a miniature disco ball.

"Fuck." He growled softly and closed one big hand around the piece of wood and lead.

Stephanie frowned, ready to jump to her feet. If he was going to get moody every time she tried to be nice she was going to give up and…

"I know a guy, but he won't talk to just anyone." Going by the look on his face Steph would have sworn Jason was pulling teeth from his mouth instead of words. He looked at her, his expression shifting a dozen times and way too fast for her to pick out any one emotion. "How much are you willing to risk?"

"Why?" She asked wringing her hands in her lap and wishing she hadn't put 'all' her books away.

"Cause he might talk to the Red Hood's 'sister'."

"Crap." She said. It was bad enough having low level thugs interrupting her patrols, and hard proof was all the heavy hitters were waiting for before taking the risk at going after a bat. She bit down on her bottom lip while she though, going so far as to actually draw blood.

Getting so involved in the Gotham underworld was stupid, if there was any other possible way to get what she needed she would have taken it, but she didn't. She didn't have the same iconic presence as Batman and Robin, or Tim's information network, or Cass's ability to scare the crap out of people with just a word.

Only one of those people would help her, and that one person was in Hong Kong with problems of her own.

Jason, however dangerous his help was all she had.

"There could be a gang war Jason." She said, steeling herself with her growing resolve. She loved Gotham, and she wasn't going to let it sink into chaos again. "I'm willing to risk everything."

He scrubbed his hand over his eyes, a weary sigh escaping his lips. "Don't be too brave Blondie." He held out his hand. "Give me something to write on."


	9. Responsibility

**Formatting on this one might be a little off, an italics aren't working, but this is the only way will let me publish it. I'll did it up as soon as I can.**

_0o0_

Gotham, a city where there were very few places you could walk safely at night. A city where even common citizens would sometimes take shots at their heroes.

Steph wished she could have said she felt comfortable going in full costume to a seedy back alley that would have been asking for trouble even in daytime. Swooping down from rooftops to deliver her righteous Batgirl fury was one thing, but going down to the street level with was essentially her own kill order in her hands made her understandably antsy.

The last time she'd run off on her own just to prove she could had ended… badly, so she'd swallowed her pride and asked for some backup.

"I'm starting worry the crazy is catching." Tim peered at the rusty red door, his mouth curled into the same frown he usually reserved for annoying pre-teen sidekicks.

It was nice to know he had her back, even if he was being a jerk about it, so Steph didn't bring up how she wouldn't have had to resort to shady alleys in the Bowery that looked like they spawned mutated crocodile monsters if he'd have looked at the bloody imprint she'd tried to show him.

"Just keep watch, kay." She said, dropping down from the fire escape they were perched on, preemptively cutting off his offer to accompany her inside too. Jason had made it pretty clear that his guy wouldn't talk to her if she was with another bat. It was a tossup on whether he'd talk to her alone as it was.

She pushed down her anxiety, doing a sweep of the alley, but leaving the many potential enemies where she saw them before raising one hand to rap confidently on the door, clutching the letter in the other.

The door creaked open a crack, flecks of red paint dislodging from its surface to drift down and settle on her boots, a single, bloodshot eye appearing in the small opening. The man tried to close the door as soon as he saw who was on the other side, but Steph struck out with a kick to his torso, pushing him into the darkness and hearing a painful clattering of broken glass from within.

'They think you're gonna go easy on em and they'll clam up.'

It was easy to cut off any sympathy she had for the man when she remembered that he was likely to be the cause of all the hit lists she'd be added to by the end of the night. Arms, hanging languidly by her sides, she stalked in with a steady gait.

"Nice place." She made a show of twisting her head round to take in her surroundings – a really messy, really cluttered single room apartment that smelled like mildew among other things – before lifting herself to sit on a relatively clean patch of countertop.

"You can't prove I did nothing." The pudgy man leaped to his feet, arms flailing comically as he screamed, a thin trail of blood dripping down his face. "You has no right ta…"

"Hush hush Billy." Steph rolled her eyes, keeping her expression otherwise blank and impersonal, playing up her inner-city accent a little. "I'm jus' here for a chat."

"Well I got's nothing ta say ta you bats." He growled, grabbing for a gun he thought she hadn't seen. A batarang flew from her fingertips, nicely slicing that option from his list of choices.

"You wanna tell that to my bro when he comes asking what the fuck you been doin' while he's in that nuthouse?" Steph casually tossed the folded piece of paper at him, not bothering to hold back her snort at the way he flinched when it batted against his forehead.

"Ya think I'm dumb enough ta believe that shit?" He sounded brave, but his hands were shaking while he unfolded the letter, not taking his eyes of her till she rolled hers and nonchalantly lifted the bag of multicolored pills she found on the countertop.

"Don't care what ya believe." She threw the bag at him, delighting in the way it split open upon hitting the wall and its contents clattered all over the filthy floor and the dealer who'd ducked out of the way. 'No puns Blondie' had never been so hard when there were so many good one's about trash presenting themselves before her. "All I care about is you telling me whose tryna make a play on his turf 'fore it has to get ugly."

He swallowed thickly, slowly pulling himself up and stumbling to the wall. It was almost funny how he was trying to look like he was casually leaning against the wall. "Already ugly darling." He folded his arms. "What's the Hood gonna do 'bout it?"

A mimicry of the smirk that scared the crap out of her graced her lips as she advanced towards the man, crunching the drugs underfoot as she did so, and retrieved the batarang lodged in the wall behind his head. "Whaddaya think?" She turned the cool metal over in her hands.

A crook had never spilled his guts so thoroughly for her before.

It was almost as satisfying as it was frustrating when she was given a slew of names and locations she'd have to follow up on later, people she'd never heard of and places she never would have thought to check up on her own.

He even offered her a drink, downing half the bottle himself when she refused. She was careful to keep any interest of her face while she continued toying with the batarang.

"I really hope you're not lying." She drawled, tucking weapon away when she turned away from her, the feeling that it had been maybe a little too easy settling heavily on her shoulders. She rested her hand on the door, an inch away from pushing it open and leaving, she cocked her head towards him, holding out her other hand expectantly.

At his bewildered expression she cleared her throat and wagged her fingers. "You think he'd forget?" She asked with a raised brow.

"Course not." The man smiled nervously, seconds later a tall stack of bills was dropped into her waiting hand.

"Seeya 'round Billy!" She smiled brightly and waved with the cash before actually leaving.

By the time she stepped into cool night air there were already several unconscious thugs littering the alley floor and police sirens followed not long after.

Tim waited for her at the top of the fire-escape, barely a sheen of moisture to shoe he'd pent the last half hour kicking ass in the alley below. She had such cool friends.

"Ninjas Tim." Steph said, thrusting the handful of pills she'd lifted from the apartment at him. "It's always ninjas lately. And I think we just busted a drug lord."

_0o0_

She would have been surprised at the kinds of things people could get used to if she'd stopped to think about how being in the asylum didn't really bother her anymore.

"What do you want me to do with all of this?" Steph asked, flipping through the stack of money.

"Buy a bouncy house." Jason was lying with his head hanging off his bed, resting his feet against the wall, glittery pencil tucked behind his ear and his book lying open on his chest.

"You're kidding?" She asked, just to be sure, because with the people she could never tell with the types of people she hung around.

Jason shrugged, letting his arms fall to the ground next to his head. "I really don't give a fuck, just didn't want that asswipe keeping it."

Steph shifted the books on her lap, having to catch a pen before it dropped to the ground. "Can't believe he was so scared, no one's ever been that scared of me before." She frowned disapprovingly at him. "You're a horrible boss, what do you do to those people. If I were human resources I'd sue you."

Jason snorted, turning his head away from her and pulling his upper half onto the bed, he paged through his book. "Did I mention I put heads in a duffle bag?"

"Yes." Steph groaned, rolling her eyes. "You also just told me to buy a bouncy house with your drug money." She couldn't reconcile even the idea of someone doing that with the guy scribbling down notes like a geek in front of her. Just as she was about to tease him for sounding like an edge lord he tilted his head, revealing a scar across his neck, reminding her that yes, he really was the person who'd put heads in a bag, and maybe even worse things besides that.

"You know you want a bouncy house," He said without a hint of humor in his voice while he chewed on the edge of his pencil, little bits of light reflecting onto his face.

She stared blankly at her schoolwork to avoid the headache she felt coming on just by looking at him.

Everyone said he was crazy, Tim took it a step further and called him deranged. Tim who was smarter than anyone she'd ever met, and even Barbara whose opinion Steph valued more than anyone in the world's.

A small smile lit up Jason's face for barely a second and he underscored a line in his book.

Tim also said that Jason was a blunt instrument, comparing him to a thug that used brute force to accomplish his goals. Scores of files that Steph wasn't supposed to read told a different story, not a good one, but one that contradicted itself at every turn.

Every time his name popped up he was like he was someone else, taking over the Gotham underworld, messing with Nightwing, trying to save an innocent Black Lightning from prison. Like Jason himself couldn't figure out who he was supposed to be.

She bit her lip to keep herself from talking, unwilling to risk asking any of the myriads of questions that lined up at the tip of her tongue.

"I took Robin to a bouncy house once." She said eventually.

"Bet he loved that." Jason snorted.

"Hey Hood." She packed away her schoolwork, bringing out a large bag of marshmallows and a blank sheet of paper. "You ever play ghost?"

He didn't turn his head, glancing at her out the corner of his narrowed eye, not impressed in the slightest. "I'm a zombie, not a ghost."

"It's a word game." Steph said. "We take turns saying letters and the first one to make a word gets a G then an H and an O, till you spell out ghost." She held up the marshmallows, shaking the bag imploringly. "It's fun."

Jason frowned skeptically, his hold on his book tightening. He sat up a little straighter, but bent his head over the pages immediately after, his hair shielding his face from view. "Fine."

"Jeez, you don't have to be so dramatic about it." Steph tore open the bag. "L"

"L." Jason turned a page.

"Challenge!" Steph cried, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"What?" Jason shut the book and turned to her.

"You have to prove you can make a word with the letters you chose." Steph explained, folding her arms to hide the heat she felt spreading across her cheeks as his scrutinizing gaze.

"Llama?" His face scrunched up a little, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his hair.

"Oh." Steph chuckled nervously. "Crap." She tossed him a marshmallow.

He squished the soft thing between two fingers, looking at it with the same frown she gave most of her math homework, before setting it almost gently on his desk.

"You start now." Steph wrote a G next to her name on the paper. "Oh, and only words more than three letters long count." She added, wagging the pencil.

"P." He tucked his book under his pillow and set the marshmallow on his desk.

Not an hour later he was smirking behind a wall of soft white sugar, and Steph had added about twenty words to her vocabulary, the least weird of which was 'fugacious'.

Playing ghost with a bookworm? Bad idea.

_0o0_

'I'm saying I wouldn't be averse to altering our previous agreement.'

'I can do it.'

'Be careful, boy.'

Jason kept his head down, surveying the halls he hadn't had the chance to walk through since he'd first been committed. Security in this area was supposed to be higher than the one he was usually locked in. Magnetic locks, biometric scanners, voice passwords, the works.

It was the place they held those of Batman's freaks who weren't exactly crazy, just too dangerous to keep in any prisons, or requiring special care. Last Jason heard, Victor Frieze was being held in one of the nearby cells. Ras al Ghul had been kept there too at one point.

None of the doors they passed even had the tiny cut out window that Jason's did. Just looking at the things had him feeling claustrophobic, even without seeing the insides that he was sure weren't much improved from the tiny closet like things he's seen in his Robin days.

As pissed as he was at Batman for putting him in Arkham, seeing those tiny cells reminded him that it could have been much, much worse. Hell, he'd have chosen Talia over those things.

They twisted around a corner and a plain wooden door came into view. It was so different from the others, that the first time Jason had seen it, he'd half expected some magician was messing with him.

Now though, as he was led towards it and felt an almost foreign tightening in his gut, he was sure he would have preferred facing Doctor Fate on the other side.

He was careful to keep any of those thoughts out of his face and the door swung open, revealing the orderly office within. He pushed into the rickety wooden chair on the other side, his arms pulled tightly behind his back and chained to a steel rung on the ground.

Jeremiah Arkham watched impassively from his plush high backed chair, chin resting on his clasped hands.

All of Jason's people training told him that this was a good time to shut up and keep his head down. He had a plan, he had means, all he was waiting for was an opportunity to present itself. Sitting through a session with Doctor Headcase himself wouldn't be the hardest thing he'd ever pulled off, right?

"Mister Doe." Arkham sighed once they were alone. "Truly, a disappointment a few months ago you were well on your way to being reintroduced to society."

Jason held back a scoff, he'd been further in his way that the 'Doctor' trying to stare him down.

It wasn't exactly a secret that Jeremiah Arkham himself had a few screws loose. The guy had always seemed to believe that he could rehabilitate the freaks that Batman was always tossing into Arkham. Everyone but the good doctor himself had no trouble penning that as his own brand of delusional ambition, or just about.

"Not it seems all I get regarding you are near constant complaints." The man sighed wearily and began looking through file with no name printed on the front. "In particular from your therapist, whose been nothing but accommodating during your sessions."

There were somehow still people who believed the director of the Asylum which bore his name had a chance at getting the job done.

Jason wasn't one of those people, he knew what the man did behind closed doors once he saw that his patients were beyond his help and he his own hubris made it impossible for him to believe.

"What do you want me to say, doc?" Jason's eyes were drawn to the small patch of sunlight peeking through the tightly drawn blinds behind the doctor. His hands twitched towards it, and for once in his life, he was glad they were tightly bound behind his back.

"Only what I want from all my patients." Arkham smiled 'pleasantly' leaning in just enough that Jason could see the tiny red veins encroaching on the edges of his eyes. "For you to take responsibility for your actions and accept our help." Here he spread out his arms like he was offering a warm embrace.

The whole display just crept Jason the fuck out, but damned if he was going to show it, not with that camera he could feel burning into the back of his neck.

"I did take responsibility for my actions." Jason relaxed into the uncomfortable chair, heedless of the armrests chaffing into the sides of his larger frame. "Confessed to every single one."

"That's only the first step my boy, and you know it." Jeremiah chuckled like he'd told some joke Jaosn was supposed to be in on. "You can't expect, after everything that we'll believe you're mentally stable." He flipped to a page near the beginning if het file, tracing the letters as he spoke. "You're kill count on its own would have warranted your admission…"

"I'm not the only…" Jason tried to cut but the doctor just continued on talking.

"Yes, they deserved it, I'm sure." He said, nodding indulgently. "And in that costume to boot, how many hours did you put into designing that, building up another persona to take the blame for your violent rampage?"

"It was supposed to be…" ironic, Jason meant to say, he hadn't put half an hour's though into the tacky outfit he'd fought Dick and the Princeling in, purposely tossing together the most ridiculous getup he could.

"Still you refuse to give us your real name." Jeremiah paged away from the extensive criminal record, towards pages of neatly printed numbers that Jason had never gotten the chance to take a look at. "It's as if this whole thing is just a game to you." He pulled of his glasses and shut the file, shaking his head forlornly. "Since you've been denied release to your preferred place of holding, a prison where anyone with half of this," the doctor waved the file at Jason, "would be killed within hours."

"They wouldn't have been able to touch me." Jason's nails dug into the flesh of his palms while he struggled to keep his calm, patches of green encroaching on his vision.

"Threatening the orderlies put in place to escort you to and from your sessions, outright attacking your fellow patients, one of which was woman who was once a highly esteemed doctor here herself and would have gone on to do great things if not for the interventions of a madman…"

"She'd have to have been a headcase long before Joker to even get near that Freak." Jason interjected.

"Even your own therapist, you've driven that poor woman to the brink of a nervous breakdown herself, Mister 'John Doe'." The emphasis on the name Jason had jokingly checked in with wasn't lost on the ex-crimelord, but was ignored none the less.

"I didn't do…"

Arkham slammed his hands onto the desk, the sudden change in his temperament enough to shock Jason into silence, even shrinking back a little when the man stood to circle the desk. "And without other outlets, you've turned your destructive tendencies on yourself, going so far as to starve yourself, and..." He yanked apart Jason's hands, pressing his own spindly fingers into the bloody palm, eliciting surprised hiss of pain from the teen. "Tell me this doesn't reek of mental illness." Arkham released the hands, wiping his bloody fingers on Jason's arm while he went back to his seat.

Jason made a deliberate attempt to not clench up his fists again, only noticing the stinging after the damned doctor had pointed it out. "I didn't mean to…"

"Responsibility Mister Doe." Arkham cut him off yet again. "None of your childish excuses will be tolerated in my office."

"Childish?!" Jason gave up on keeping his hands loose, what the hell did it matter if his hands got a little more bloody, not like it would change anything. "Maybe if you assholes didn't put fucking narcotics and god knows what else into that 'food' I wouldn't be throwing it all down the drain!"

Jeremiah didn't say anything at first, but Jason could see his last statement had peeked the doctor's interest. Jason could already feel the bile rising in his throat while Jeremiah wrote something down in his file.

"I think I see the problem." Jeremiah said at last, slowly closing the file.

"Yeah?" Jason suddenly felt very thirsty.

"You're issues with control, compounded with delusions of invincibility have you thinking the prescriptions assigned you by medical professionals are for the purpose of causing you harm."

'Delusions?' He knew for an absolute fact the things were causing him harm, but he didn't bother trying to reason with Arkham. The man had made it obvious he wasn't willing to listen to anything Jason had to say.

"We'll be updating your treatment plans." Arkham continued. "As you refuse the oral medication in any form, the only option remaining is intravenous…"

"Needles?" Jason blurted out, because fuck no. If that was the case he was definitely moving his plans up, he'd make an opportunity if he had to.

"Nothing for you to worry about." Jeremiah said, a condescending smile on his lips as he tapped the call button at his desk and spoke into a little microphone. "A few orderlies to escort Mister Doe to his cell please." The door opened seconds later, two huge guards that Jason had never seen before stepping through to untie him while the doctor seemed to have forgotten his very existence.

"Arkham." Jason called as meaty fists gripped his shoulders and hauled him off his feet towards the door. The doctor didn't respond, and Jason's attempts to break free were fruitless. "Arkham! Hey I'll eat the fucking food!"

All he got in response was a dismissive wave while the door closed on the doctor still writing at his desk.

Jason growled, but didn't resist being led back to his cell.

Not like Arkham's guards were anything special, he was confident he could fight off anyone who came at him with a syringe full of whatever new cocktail the doctor cooked up.

It would be fine, another week and he'd be out of that hell hole.

…'I wouldn't be averse to altering our previous agreement.'

He didn't need her help, he'd be fine.

'Be careful, boy.'


	10. Law

Jason was different the next time Stephanie visited, but not in any way she could have put in words had anyone asked her to describe it. He was just… off.

When she walked in he didn't even look at her. Now she wouldn't have found that at all weird during her earlier visits. Jason acted like she wasn't there plenty of times.

' _Jason acted'_ like she wasn't there, but there really wasn't any more of a question as to how closely he watched her as there was whether she was there at all. Taking your eyes off a potential threat was a big no-no, and the first lesson Batman pounded into them was that everyone was a potential threat.

She didn't know how she knew, but it was like Jason didn't notice her presence at all until she was within striking range. Maybe it was because he didn't even have a book in his hands or his face tucked under his pillow to distract from the fact that he was focusing on something far away from the little cell that was almost his whole world.

"Happy almost solved the case day." She proclaimed, cheerfully setting down the icing covered monstrosity she'd slaved for three hours under the watchful eye of her mother.

All the attention awarded her creation was a dismissive glance before is dimmed teal eyes refocused on the wall. Okay, the small cake looked like something out of a low budget horror movie, but that was exactly why she'd been expecting mockery of some sort at the very least.

"I hope you're not this moody on 'Actually solved the case day'."An unused batarang made as good a cake knife as anything, and she set about dividing the cake into ten even slices.

"Leave me alone." He didn't acknowledge the paper plate she slid towards him at all.

Unless he was sleeping or pretending to sleep – Steph couldn't tell the difference and doubted it mattered with a former street rat – Jason at least looked at everything she tried getting close to him, another of those potential threat things. In their line of work it could have been a bomb for all he knew.

"It's just cake." Steph pulled out her stool a little more cautiously that she had her last few visits, weary of breaking him from whatever trance he was in. Just looking at him was enough to tell he wouldn't be playing any games with her that early morning.

While she sat in silence, the chutes and ladders board stayed in her bag and she scooped up a mouthful of the cake, ugly green icing and all with one of the rainbow colored plastic sporks she almost hadn't gotten in.

"I was gonna use a box mix, but then it wouldn't be a celebration cake, it would've been a… box cake I guess. So I got a recipe online, comments said it'd turn out good, but you know." She waved her spork around while she chewed. "It's not bad though, try a bite."

With a short shake of his head and a long suffering sigh – freaking drama queen – Jason lifted his plastic spork and took exactly one bite of his cake before pushing it away, his face turning a little green as soon as he swallowed.

"Fuck." He pressed one hand over his mouth, looking at her like she was the devil incarnate. "Happy?"

"It's not that bad!" Steph accused, taking another bite to prove her point. "Couldn't you just this once _not_ be so mean?"

Jason groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face, drawing attention to the increased prominence of the bags under his eyes. "It's not the taste." He admitted in that 'pulling teeth' tone again. "Fucking Arkham's monitoring my food intake." He dropped the plate on his desk with a barely disguised – but hey, he tried to disguise it – scowl on his face.

It was kinda funny, until Steph realized what it meant that he ' _had_ ' to eat that stuff now. Her cheeks went a little red when she remembered the time she'd been stupid enough to try some of that stuff and she still remember the almost crippling sensory overload she'd experienced after that one bite. She hadn't wanted to eat anything that whole day.

"But breakfast's only in two hours?" She set her empty plate beside his full one.

"Been eight hours since dinner." Jason nestled himself into the corner his bed was pressed up against, grumbling a little to himself before his eyes went vacant again.

"Is it even legal for them to drug everything you eat?" She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. If his reaction to that stuff was anything like hers had been, he'd have a killer headache right then, but something to take his mind off it was better than silence.

He rolled his eyes and went back to staring at nothing, tucking his knees against his chest and folding his arms on top of them to pillow his head. "What do you think?"

Of course it was legal, she leaned a bit into her own corner. She was sitting in an asylum for the criminally insane, Jason was criminally insane and wouldn't take the drugs any other way. It was just the kind of thing that happened in those kinds of places to people who were as uncooperative as him.

"You're not reading today?" She said in that same soft tone, like there was some big secret she didn't want anyone else to hear. "Did you fill up the pages with your cute little notes already?"

"It sucks you're not up to the cake, cause it's awesome, and I put a lot of work into it, not the actual missing and stuff, but my mom. She was all 'Why are you baking a cake so late at night Ste… Batgirl,' then I told her I wanted it fresh because warm cake is best, so she said 'I'm sorry, why do you need a 'fresh' cake so late at night?' so I said it was a school thing, but I'm two hours early tonight cause I could tell she didn't believe, so I high tailed my cute ass outta there, so…"

"Sentence structure Blondie." Jason groaned, slumping over so he was laying on his side. "If you're not going to stop bothering me at least do it right."

"I you keep interrupting my stories, I'm not telling you anymore." Her last few words were punctuated by the wagging of her index finger, a move she saw often from disappointed professors.

"Heaven forbid." He uncurled a bit and shifted his head to his pillow with a sigh.

"You're such an asshole." She said, her chest lightening a little now that he was acting a little more like himself. Only a little though, because she knew even then that Jason was one hell of an actor, even if she didn't know yet just how good.

.

.

.

The light still blinked out of time, and Jason hated it more and more with each passing hour. A night ago it had occurred to him that the blinks might be some kind of coded message, but even then he didn't find any meaning in the erratic pattern.

Picking at the crescent scabs in his palms, he kept his eyes on that light. Such a simple thing, yet it infuriated him. He wanted the cell lights to come on, wash out the blinking even a little while at the same time he dreaded it.

Blink, pause, blink, blink, blink, pause, blink, pause, pause…

It kept on, and even though he couldn't bring himself to lay down, he pressed his pillow into his face hard enough to suffocate him.

He was light headed by the time she stepped into his cell, and not entirely sure how aware he was. It didn't matter too much though, by the time she skipped – fucking skipped, her had to blink a few times to make sure his suffocation attempt hadn't given him brain damage – over to his stool, he was as aware as ever.

"You'll never guess what you're lead turned up!" She excitedly punched at an invisible target in the air, a huge grin on her face.

"No." That case again, just looking at her was like some sadistic fuck had opened the curtains on a bright afternoon after he'd spent the night concussed. It left him with a migraine out of the seventh hell and steadily building nausea. He pressed his face back into his pillow to block out the imaginary light and maybe get a few more minutes of not-sleep.

"Don't be an ass." She set something down in the desk and started unscrewing the cap. "Come on, I made it myself…"

"So reassuring," he peeked up from his pillow to watch her reaction.

"…because the store didn't stock what I wanted." The second half of her statement was much less cheery that the first had been. She held a steaming cut to him while pinching the bridge of her nose with her other hand. "It's ginger and chamomile and peppermint and a bunch of spices that'll help you feel better. I mixed it all, so I know it doesn't have any weird chemicals or whatever."

Jason eyed the cup skeptically, he'd almost thrown up the last thing she'd gotten him to eat, and he wasn't keen on trying something else that rich, even without the risk of some kind of poisoning. When he didn't take the cup from her, she set next to the thermos on his desk and drew her stool to her corner.

The smell wafted up to him, and thankfully didn't make him any more nauseous, but he was too tired to either pick it up, or push it further away from him, so he just left it where it was. He guards would take it away when he was taken to the common room just like they did almost all the things Blondie left in his cell.

Now they were assholes, would probably be Jeremiahs flunkies the next time too.

…

Actually some tea wasn't that bad of an idea. If for no reason other than the water in the taps was worse than anything Blondie could cook up.

She was talking again while he lifted the cup, careful not to spill any over the side.

"… a nurse, so she knows these kinda things, but now she thinks I have pregnant friend who craves cake at ungodly hours and she said I'm lucky I'm not a guy, but…" Her face scrunched up like an old leaf and she drew her hands up to cover it. "…Oh I just got what she meant by that." She let out a high-pitched keening sound.

The genuine emotion, and not the kind that came from having an embarrassing parent, drew Jason's attention from the tendrils of steam curling out of the pungent scented liquid in his hands. A question was on the tip of his tongue, but he washed it down with a sip of the tea, finding he'd rather not know.

"I wanted to put some honey in it, but…" She trialed off and pulled out her schoolbooks. "So we got the analyses back on the drugs we lifted from Billyboy's hovel, wanna know what we found?"

"An opiate-venom compound." He swirled the tea around his cup just so he could move his hands.

"An opiate-venom compound." She tilted her head from side-to-side while she spoke in a guttural voice, he really hoped that wasn't supposed to be an impression of him – he didn't do that thing with his head. "I thought you don't know anything about the scene out there."

"I can guess." Jason read through some of the notes he'd made in the page borders. "I wouldn't have told ya 'bout him if I didn't have an idea what he was up to."

"Did you guess he had ninjas?" She asked, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

"Yes." He lied, he'd had no idea Billy would have hired bodyguards, but there was no reason she had to know that. How would such a low ranking looser even get the money for something like that? Unless they'd been fakes or, he'd have guessed a street gang that just called themselves ninja's, but she'd described them in detail when she'd told him about the meeting…

Only she'd described the using very generic terms, and there were many groups who could fit her _'ninja'_ mold, even if they had nothing beyond face-coverings in common with Japanese assassins.

"Now Batman is off tracking Bane down, big Batman, not Nightwing, so I can get away with sneaking homemade tea into Arkham, fun times they are a here." She chuckled and started on her homework.

"He trusts Dickwing to watch his city?" Jason asked, calmly taking a sip of his tea while inside he could feel his heart rate speeding up.

"Yeah, well he did it before, and Big B's not really gone yet, just too wrapped up in front of that computer to notice anything." She shrugged, the pursing of her lips somewhere between a pout and a smile.

Another time he might have found that amusing, but right then all the only part of that situation he could care about was that Bruce was looking for Bane, and that when he found out where the man was he'd leave Gotham to find him.

Bane wasn't an idiot, for his boasting he was no Bruce Wayne, but definitely not an idiot. The guy knew how to keep himself hidden when he needed to be, and if he _was_ involving himself in the Gotham drug trade he would definitely be sliding towards that school of thought.

Thing was, no matter how well bane hid himself, he knew he was at the 'League of Shadow's' beck and call, just like anyone who'd ever worked for Ras, and he had to be careful not to hide himself from them too, or there would be consequences. Jason himself had a few scars that could attest to that, and he'd never even been on old Dustballs al Ghul's payroll.

"I'm surprised they're chasing it." Jason finished the tea off, it was cold but he barely noticed, there were more important things on his mind than the chemical cocktail in his bloodstream. "Ida though they'd toss any info from me out on its ass."

"We've gotten leads from worse places." She was looking around the cell again, like there was actually something interesting about the bare cell. "Man I'm not looking forward to checking out tonight, those guards are even more hardass about their 'procedures,'" A deaf man would have heard those airquotes, "than usual. A visitor stole a bunch of their phones or something, and when I told em I didn't deal with things like that, and they're all pissed with me. Not Scholz though," she grinned, "he's still too scared to so much as look at me, now if there was just some way you could work your magic on this guy in my chem class…"

.

.

.

Batman, the real one, not Dick, had been the only snare in his plan, requiring the extra fortnight's worth of work for Jason to come up with plan he was reasonably sure would work. Without Bruce, he had all he needed to bust out, and now thanks to the stupidity of a scumbag who'd barely been on his radar before, he might have gotten what he needed to take Batman out of the equation entirely.

He was almost so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the turn Dumbasses number one and two led him down when they came to collect him for his session with Jeremiah.

Silent as the grave was a funny expression, and in Jason's case was extremely inaccurate… blood… wood… dirt… screaming for… Jason stomped on those thoughts like they were a glass and he a Jewish groom.

Damned drugs messing with his head again.

Anyway, he would never in his life use _that_ expression unless he was sure it would get a response out of _certain people_ who he wasn't likely to see very soon, if ever. Thing was, the halls they walked though were _gravely_ quiet. It wasn't funny but almost prompted a chuckle from Jason anyway, yeah he was definitely setting something on fire when he left.

Fuck, he forced a smile off his face. Two days on that crap and he was already losing his ability to keep his train of thought on track for more than two minutes. That it'd only been three hours since he'd last eaten wasn't helping matters at all.

There halls were empty, no guards, no shambling patients, it was so quiet that the echoing of his footsteps almost had Jason feeling sacrilegious.

Eerie, but not the reason he had dread pooling in his gut with every step. Going on the layout he'd memorized what felt forever ago, the list of places they were leading him to were places that everything he'd done since Bruce had denied him a transfer had been to keep him out of.

Surgery, said a sign decorated with a blood red cross. In a room labeled Recovery, he caught a glance at rows of empty beds.

Past all the doors he went, not once breaking his confident stride. A scare tactic, the front of his mind reasoned, Jeremiah just wanted to show his threats should be taken seriously. It took a few minutes of even breaths, and staring down that door as they approached to convince the back of his mind of the same thing.

The door opened and he was treated to the sight if Doctor Jeremiah Arkham in a fucking lab coat, syringe in hand. Jason chose irritation over the myriad emotions raging through his blood.

"I've been cooperating." Jason said, clenching his fists at his side and refusing to take so much as a step forward. "I've done…"

"To feed the delusion that you have any sort of control over this situation." Jeremiah said evenly. "You have to understand the only way you can gain any real control is to let us do our jobs and help you."

Yeah, fuck no. Jason didn't take a step back, didn't so much as flinch when Arkham approached with the needle, but he squared his shoulders to show that he was more than prepared to fight if that thing got anywhere near him. 'Try it, I dare you.' His posture practically screamed when he locked eyes with the doctor.

"This," Jeremiah waved his arm at defiant patient in front of him, "is exactly why you need _this_ ," he held up the needle. "If you keep resisting I'm not above sedating you."

"Go to hell." Jason struck, knocking the syringe out of the Doctors hand before anyone else even noticed him move, it flew across the room and shattered against the wall, little pieces dropping to the floor along with the liquid, making a sound akin to tiny chiming bells.

Jeremiah seethed, his face reddening, but all he did was nod and Dumbass number two's hold on Jason shifted, arms moving to put the boy in a viselike grip. Number one went to get a breathing mask off a nearby shelf and tried to press it against Jason's face.

Too weak from those drugs to properly defend himself, Jason was reduced to ducking his head away from the device.

"You Asshole!" Jason bucked in Two's hold, forcing down any feeling but rage. "You do keep trying this and I swear you'll regret it." His eyes searched for the camera he knew had to be there, but he couldn't find it. Not a hint of the blinking red dot anywhere in the room. It had to be behind One's grotesque head. "There were already drugs in the food, you said if I ate it…"

"I said nothing of the sort, I diagnosed you and this is the cure."

Number two got the mask over Jason's face and he boy held his breath while Arkham approached with a fresh needle. With a surge of strength born of a sudden spike of adrenaline, Jason broke out of Number one's hold by drooping to the ground and skidding away.

"You have no right Arkham." Jason said, his breath hitching on the last word.

"On the…"

"Shut the hell up!" Jason stood, resisting the urge to lean against the wall and the little bits of glass in his left arm – when the hell had that happened? – he wasn't letting the old man interrupt him again. "In cases where he patient is incapable of deciding for themselves, all new treatment plans need the approval of a legal proxy." Jason's breathing was still shallow, but evening out with every second, his growing anxiety being forced back. "You don't have the right."

Arkham stared Jason down, his face flickering through an interesting variety of emotions before finally settling on cold fury.

"Well played, boy." He set the syringe on a metal table with a loud _'chink'_. "Return the patient to his room while I contact the necessary authorities."

Jason, his heart still beating heavily in his chest let the men lead him back to his cell. As soon as the door shut behind him and he was alone as he ever got he tumbled onto the bed. There was no way he was dying of an overdose in kennel of freaks.

Ten hours later Batgirl showed up all smiles and pointless stories, another thermos of tea in hand.

Jason told her where to find Bane.


	11. Sleep

Blink, pause, blink, blink, pause.

Jason turned resolutely away from that damned blinking light, closing his eyes instead on the tiny device he'd painstakingly built to ensure he'd never have to stare at that fucking thing again. Actually, he might just take some time out to but a whole inventories worth of cameras just to set them up and blow them to hell when this was all over.

Blankets, in Jason's modest opinion were useful in only three situations, treating hypothermia, escaping from prisons that actually had windows he could climb through, and strangling people when no other weapon was available. His current plan had no need for _any_ of those things, and he'd found two more uses for the one he never actually slept under – if he was dying again, it wasn't going to be because he had a scratchy blanket wrapped around his legs and couldn't get off his ass to defend himself okay – to hide the Frankenstein's monster of cell phone part he'd lifted off the guards.

See, he could be non-violent if he wanted to. There was a giddy edge to his thoughts, and he wasn't quite sure if it was adrenaline, or the drugs in his water, then again he was pretty sure they'd put adrenaline on his water so, same difference, right?

His hands, though much softer than they'd been months ago were still calloused enough that the mild shocks didn't bother him as much as they could have, but that didn't make him long for the roles of insulation tape he'd spotted on one of his walks to the commons.

The last wire was twisted in place with a light _'zap'_ and he carefully insulated the low current with what was left of the screen protectors. He gave the device one last inspection, with no opportunities for testing there was no way to be absolutely sure it would work until he actually put the thing to use, but he could at least make sure everything was in place.

He placed the device the next time he was taken to the commons area.

For a few minutes back in his cell, he let his blood rush, adrenaline working through his system, speeding up his breathing and heart rate. His whole body felt flushed, almost feverish while his mind pushed through the possibilities, everything that could go wrong if he didn't time things just right, or let himself slip too far under for the triggers to pull him back out.

Then he lay back, and stopped.

.

.

.

Steph strolled through Arkham, chewing on a rope of taffy while she rolled the warm thermos around in her other hand.

As usual, the halls were quiet but for the occasional groan or giggle and a little chatter drifting down from the night staff – yikes that one was kind of loud – of the inmates. She bypassed the empty help desk without a glance and made right for the guard station on the far wall.

Depending in who was on duty and how much she was carrying the guards would usually let her walk on through without any more than a curt wave. Baker was the only one she ever found actually watching the cameras when she got nearer the station with the other two watching some movie on a smaller laptop.

She grimaced as she made for the door. While she could understand the guys not wanting to spend seven straight hours watching people sleep – it took a few points off their creep factor actually – it made her a little uncomfortable that people like the Joker could do pretty much whatever they wanted after lights out if they were quiet enough about it.

With a shrug, she decided that so long as there was ' _someone'_ watching the cameras it wasn't really that big of a risk, there was only so much the bad guys could do when they couldn't see, right?

The door didn't open when she gave it a tug, and it was only then the guards looked up from their perspective screens.

"Sorry." Baker jerked upward his eyes flickering nervously between her and the screen. He held up his hands as he eventually decided on her and got up from his seat to step outside of the little station and approach her. "Doctor Arkham says we can't let you through tonight."

"Yeah, and what's it this time?" Steph spun in her heel to give the guy the full brunt of her annoyed gaze. He immediately backed up, raising his hands higher.

"S-sorry. It's not, I can't…"

Maybe full annoyance was a bit much, Steph toned it down relaxing her posture a little, Bakers shyness was almost endearing most of the time, but it got a bit much sometimes. God she hoped the guy was never on duty when one of the crazies were staging a breakout.

"Fine, don't worry about it, I'll just go talk to Doctor Arkham myself." Thanks to extensive drilling in case of emergencies, Steph knew the layout of the building well enough to locate the director's office within minutes, ignoring the cries of the guards chasing after her all the way.

Somehow the halls got creepier the closer she got, and she was almost glad for the guards chasing after her, ducking around their attempts at grabbing her was a nice distraction, almost because it was both annoying, and she was sure it was king up more than a few people who were better off sleeping.

Before she's made it to the office, or had a chance to doubt the Doctor being in at four in the morning, she nearly had a heart attack when his skeletal face popped up in her field of vision.

She but back a startles curse and clasped her hands tightly behind her back to keep from crashing both of them into his bony jaw. Damn the guy was creepy looking, like Skeltor on a high calorie diet. When he spoke she was actually a surprised he didn't have Skeletor's high pitched voice.

"Batgirl?" Instead his voice was of a rich timber, almost grandfatherly in the way words rolled off his tongue. "You've arrived much earlier than expected."

"Crime doesn't follow a schedule." Steph said, dusting of her Barbara voice, her college however did have a schedule and she needed the extra sleep is she was going to get a passing grade, but that didn't sound nearly as impressive okay. "What are you trying to stall for?"

"Nothing." The Doctor gasped, his eyebrows meeting the bridge of his nose, he took a second to collect himself and rested his spindly fingers on Steph's shoulder – thank goodness for the training that helped her repress that shudder – and began steering her away from the offices. "You're _'brother'_ is not in his room and I was merely trying to prevent you from wasting any more time than was necessary searching for him."

"Why isn't he in his cell?" Steph looked around, a little uneasy about the path they were taking, as far as she knew the only thing down that way was surgery, and that wasn't a good thing in any of the scenarios playing through her mind. "What happened?"

"Were not sure." Arkham pushed open a door and waved her inside.

Only one bed out of all the rows was occupied, and Steph almost checked to make sure Poison Ivy hadn't gotten out when she felt something constricting around her chest as she hurried to the bed.

Jason's skin was pale, his chest moving so little with each breath that she looked over the EKG keeping track of his sluggish heartbeat to make sure it was working right. The creases that marred his face even in sleep, were smoothed over, erasing years he hadn't lived from his sunken face.

Behind her Arkham cleared his throat and the hand hovering over his sleeping face withdrew to her chest as though she'd been burned.

"What's wrong with him?" Steph whispered, an inexplicable tremble running through the words. ' _What did you do to him?_ ' She wanted to demand, though she knew the Doctor couldn't have had anything to do with it."

"Sudden comas aren't unheard of in patients with his volatile condition." Arkham said gently. "I'll give you some time, then I'd like you to come to my office where we can discuss any further treatment in private."

"Okay." Steph said, dropping into the chair the Doctor slid next to the bedside, right then she would have given anything to make the man leave so she could look Jason over herself. With a slow nod, Arkham left, shutting the door behind him, Steph counted the retreating footsteps till they faded away, then leaped to his feet.

There were no puncture marks on his pale – god had he always been that pale – skin, and she made a mental note to ask Barbara for the camera footage from his cell, so she could review it herself. A penlight to his eyes told her nothing more than that he wasn't aware or concussed, but she checked his scalp for any bruises or, even worse, stitches. His pulse was so low she had to practically cut off his circulation just to feel the smallest trace of it.

"Jason." She whispered the name in his ear. "Jay come on, if this is your idea of a joke its really funny, but you've gotta stop now."

Unsurprisingly, Jason made no reply.

"My cake wasn't bad enough to make you this sick you ass." She ran her hands along the pads of his calloused fingers, they were cold, worryingly so, with a frown, Steph tucked both his hands under the thin blanket and pulled it up to his chin for good measure, hiding the thermos of tea in the crook of his neck.

The EKG gave another sluggish beep.

"I really wanted to tell you more about this guy in my chem class, guy's convinced I'm playing hard to guess." She leaned in close, ignoring the sharp chemical smell clinging to the comatose boy. "You now, he's almost as much of an ass as you." She gave each corner of the room a quick once over and slowly brought her hand up to brush away some of the longer hairs clinging to his forehead.

Coma, huh? He'd been fine during her last visit, knew where Bane was holed up and cut out a few extra steps in their investigation while he sipped on tea and only called it horrible once. She'd put honey in the batch she'd hidden under his blankets, just in case he woke up thirsty and didn't want the Asylums gross tasting water.

"It'll really suck if you never wake up Hood, just saying."

She wasn't going to be one of those weird people that watched people sleep, so she got up and, keeping her arms resolutely at her side, she marched out of the room and followed the waiting guard to Doctor Arkham's office.

"Just out of curiosity." She said, planting her feet firmly in front of the desk and folding her arms. "Did a tall woman with dark hair and maybe a couple ninjas show up between now and my last visit?"

"I assure you my staff would never allow such an… unorthodox party near my patients."

Steph blinked her mouth hanging a little even when tapped her index fingers at her thighs to make sure that, yep, she was still dressed as a giant bat and allowed in almost whenever she pleased. Either Arkham was very weird about what he considered ' _unorthodox_ ', or he and his staff were a bunch of liars. Going by the number of breakout the place had had in the last year alone, and visual proof that Talia had been allowed in at least twice Steph was willing to bet it was the latter.

"Yeah, okay." She leaned against the wall. "Now what about Hood's treatment?"

"I assume you want your brother to break free of his psychosis, young lady?"

"Sure I do." Steph said, though she wasn't really sure what breaking free of his psychosis would mean for Jason, would he stop thinking bringing up the heads in a bag thing was funny? Read books like a normal person instead of scribbling all over them? It'd mean he wouldn't need to stay in the asylum, and that was good, right?

"I'll be frank, your brother is very ill, and feeding his delusions is doing him no favors. If we are to have any hope of helping him separate reality from the fictional world he's created, we will need to know the reality ourselves." He slid a piece of paper across the table.

Stepping forward, Steph picked it up, her eyes widening as she read through it. She didn't know which part of Gotham Jason had grown up in, let alone what highschool he'd attended.

"You have all this information, don't you?"

"You can't honestly expect us to believe his name is John Doe." He leaned back, linking his fingers beneath his chin. "After some recent outburst I have recently taken it upon myself to treat him personally, and I'm afraid I cannot secure my professional integrity if I were to go in without knowing all the facts. It would be extremely unfortunate if he were to take ill from something so small as a peanut allergy, wouldn't it?"

Dick would have told the cops about things like that when he handed Jason over, if Dick even knew. Dam it, what if Jason's sudden coma really was because he'd been fed something he was allergic to? She'd have to ask Bruce, he would have picked up on anything like that back when Jason had been Robin.

"I don't _'think'_ he had any allergies." Steph ignored the pen he pushed towards her and folded up the paper, stashing it away in her utility belt, there was no way she could give up Jason's identity as a legally dead fifteen year old, but the other stuff…" I'll have to ask our Mom about it though, just to be sure."

Arkham bobbed his head once and retrieved his pen. "That 'would' be best. My contact information id on the form, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. You have my word any and all communications will be kept strictly between us, patient-doctor confidentiality will not be breached in any form."

"What exactly is wrong with him?" Steph couldn't help but ask. "You know, his ' _disorder_ '?" 'Crazy, was all she could get out of the other bats when she asked, but no one knew like a Gothamite just how many flavors of crazy there were.

"He's psychotic, Miss ' _Doe_ '." Steph doubted he could have put much more bite into the name if he'd tried. "A pathological liar, incapable of forming complex bonds, manipulative, excessively paranoid enough to believe my staff are trying to poison him, has delusions of grandeur, overly aggressive. If he had better control of his emotions I'd have pinned him as a sociopath."

"Huh." Steph shrugged, and nodded as she turned to leave. "I'll look over the form Doctor Arkham."

She stopped by Jason's bed before she went back home, someone had untucked his arms and they were freezing again.

"I think you're really just a smart-ass, grumpy, emotional, drama queen." She leaned in close, gently pulling up the blanket again. "I'll see you again tomorrow and you'd better be awake or I'm bringing Blackbat to shake you until you are."

.

.

.

The world was a foggy expanse of nothing, he didn't see anything, or hear anything, or even really think beyond the barest one-word terms.

Cold.

Then confined.

Warm.

Somewhere deep within the clouds of his minds, so far under that even he would never know he'd felt it, there was the term: guilt.

.

.

.

Patrolling with Cass had always been fun. Back when Steph had been Spoiler and Cass had been Batgirl, before the war games and Blackmask and of those petty fights with Tim. It had been fun then, and with the strain their new titles put on their relationship, times when Cass showed up back in Gotham had always been fun.

Only, the past few days had not been fun. If anything they'd been only a little less stressful than patrols without Cass. She just went through the motions of punching out bad guys and belting out a few puns to keep up appearances.

Even the underworlds obligatory assassination/kidnapping attempts could dredge up more emotion from her than a prickling of annoyance at the extra attention she had to pay to the fights. Maybe she'd have been a little scared too, but she had ' _Cass'_ with her, even Bruce avoided fighting with Cass.

"Need a break" Cass plopped down silently on the rooftop besides Steph, a smoothie in each hand.

Steph accepted her drink with a grin, closing her eyes to savor the cool flavorful liquid as it slid down her throat. "We're having a break right now."

"No." Cass said more firmly, stirring her own smoothie with her straw. "You need…" She slurped on her straw while flicking her hand back and forth. "A looong break."

Yeah it had been dumb to try hiding it from Cass, but Steph hadn't been hiding it exactly, just hoping her friend wouldn't bring it up. Steph didn't feel she needed a break, just for Bruce to hurry up and look at the stupid form.

It'd been two days since she'd called to tell Bruce about Doctor Arkham's list of questions, and Steph didn't want to risk writing down something the paranoid freak had deliberately lied about on the Bat computer.

"I'll take a break when everyone else does." Steph stretched and tossed her empty cup into an open dumpster in the alley below, jumping lightly to her feet. "Hey, Gotham's quiet tonight, let's change and go do something fun."

They hadn't even gotten back to Steph's apartment when Tim's voice buzzed out over the comms.

' _Fun'll have to wait girls, there's a breakout at Arkham, all hands on deck_.'


	12. Files

The asylum at night was stifling, even the light, barely audible taps of her feet against the spotless tiles made her feel like she'd stood up in quiet church and started howling Metallica at the top of her lungs. No, not a church, Steph shuddered at the sound of squeaking wheels from down a darkened hall, a morgue, and her job was setting the corpses back in their graves.

During her frequent visits she'd thought she'd gotten over the heavy atmosphere, but Arkham under the non-light of her artificial night-vision was more than heavy, it was hollow, and cold and there was something missing.

She twisted sharply on her heel and let a batarang fly ahead of, clanging into a wide shape that dropped to the ground with a heavy thump.

"Get back to your cell Maxi Zeus." She demanded, skidding by and gripping a handful of the fabric at the fallen man's back.

She was supposed to be rounding up the less dangerous stragglers while Cass handled the heavy hitters with Dick and Damian. In Barbara's absence, Tim was trying to get the power grid back online after someone had blown all the guard posts to hell.

She'd seen the wreckages, watched the staff who'd been carried away on stretchers after that, so many of them under white sheets.

Maxi Zeus's eyes were glazed over while he reached one shaky hand hesitantly for something in the distance.

"Sorry." Steph whispered as she shut his cell door. Damn she'd rather have been tasked with taking on Killer Croc with Cass. Getting a few hits to the head would have maybe helped her forget some of the hollowed out husks of people she'd trapped back in those cells, god knew nothing else would.

Those thoughts were another door she had to shut as she kept moving on, her's was also supposed to be easier of the jobs, just rustling up stragglers who were too drugged to know better, it was supposed to be the job with the least risk. For once she was glad for them underestimating her.

' _Night specs off._ ' Tim said and Steph plunged herself into darkness for the second it took for the hall lights to flicker to light.

"Did you get the cameras on yet?" Steph asked, her breath catching in her throat in the seconds it took his to answer.

' _He's there.'_ The clacking of keys accompanied Tim's statement, ' _Blackbat just punched out Riddler in case you're wondering.'_

"Shouldn't the brat be taking on Riddler?" Steph asked, her spirits a little higher now that she knew Jason wasn't to blame for the deaths that night.

' _Though it was beneath him, don't think Nygma's ever been more insulted_.' She could practically hear the eye-roll through the comm, yup no love lost there. _'Hold on.'_ More clacking keys followed by a whoosh of air _. 'Harley's on the move, heading for… Batman. Harley Quinn's heading for the infirmary.'_

' _I'm on the other side of the building, who's nearer.'_ Dick's voice was strained, the words accompanied by a low grunt. Oh yeah, if Cass took Riddler, then he and Damian were facing off against Croc.

' _Batgirls the closest, but she's...'_

Steph was already halfway down the hall, her heart beating too heavily in her chest to really hear Tim's orders.

' _Steph, turn back, you can't deal with her alone.'_

"Hey, she's just as blonde as me." Steph said, skidding around a corner, past another shambling inmate. "I can deal with her just fine."

' _Stubborn…'_ If not for the cowl, Tim would have been pulling out his hair. _'Blackbat, wrap up and get there fast.'_

Steph heard Harley before she saw her, that freaky chuckled echoing through the wide halls long before she caught a glimpse of blonde pigtails turning round a corner. She got her first full look of the Joker's girlfriend standing right outside the infirmary door.

Battle maneuvers forgotten, Steph sped up and rammed into the other blonde with all the strength in her adrenaline fueled muscles, sending them both all the way into the office at the end of the hall.

"Aw, Batchick, I was just checking on the BABY!" At the last word, Harley brought a steel chair down on Steph's head, knocking the girl to the ground before trying to walk out again.

Steph gripped the woman's leg tightly and pulled her down toppling he psycho down on top of her.

"Don't you dare." Steph's fist crashed into Harleys gut before the girl sprayed her in the face with a sedative.

"Awwww." Haley sank slowly to the ground, a loopy grin still on her face. "Now the Doctors gonna have him all to him…"

Soft snores still filled the room, but Steph didn't take the time to listen, walking off what she was hoping wasn't a sprained ankle as she headed back to the infirmary.

"Dealt with her." Steph said proudly, as she rested her hand on the door.

' _I saw._ ' Tim sighed. _'You really need to learn that waiting for backup is a thing. Blackbat's almost there, so could you just…'_

If her head felt better, Steph might have blown a raspberry, or maybe if her head was better, Steph wouldn't have felt the urge to blow a raspberry quite so keenly. Whatever, it wasn't important.

She pushed open the door.

"Where did he go?" She stepped into the room, almost running towards the empty space where once Jason's bed had been.

' _Who? The only patient in that room right now is Hood.'_

"I'm standing in the gap where his bed used to be, and he's not here." Steph's voice broke a little along with the cracking ice in her gut when she knelt on the ground next to the wobbly chair she'd been sitting in only hours earlier.

A chorus of curses erupted from the comms, but Steph's fingers trailed across the ground almost trance like, smearing the little flecks of coagulated crimson.

' _He couldn't have left the island.'_ Dick said, none of his usual joviality present. _'Everyone split up and start looking, I want every inch of this place searched.'_

 _._

 _._

 _._

They looked the whole night and part of the day, searching the whole place top to bottom at least three times between them before Jeremiah Arkham came in and demanded the return of his facilities. Apart from the blood droplets – from a nosebleed apparently – still pending testing, there was no clue as to where Jason went.

Steph sat numbly in the Batcave, watching through the hours and hours of recorded footage leading up to the breakout.

Tim couldn't find anything that even hinted at Jason messing with the footage. Explosives could be explained away as having been planted months ago, Jason was Robin at one point and that did come with a certain level of paranoia, he could have had them in place since before he'd even set foot in Arkham, but then where was the trigger?

And why did he wait so long before setting them off?

On the screen, the past Jason lay curled into a tight little ball after he'd eaten a bowl of mush under the watchful eye of an orderly with a clipboard. The audio was turned off, but the newer high quality cameras Bruce had sprung for after Talia's last visit provided her with enough crystal clear visuals that she didn't need to hear the sounds he was making through the hands clasped over his mouth.

If she'd had a plan in place that long she would have flown the coop long before things got that bad, and he hadn't.

Cass sidled up to her with the offering of a mug of hot chocolate, Steph took the beverage, but couldn't bring herself to look from the screen at the mini-marshmallow smiley arranged on top. Even the warmth of the mug made her stomach do some strange turns that didn't go unnoticed by her observant friend.

Cass reached over the chair, not Bruce's which was pushed into a corner in the man's absence, and twisted a dial while slurping from her own drink.

"Happier now." Cass said proudly, stopping on Jason sipping the tea Steph had brought over on her last visit before his coma.

Steph snorted at the proof that even Cass could read people wrong sometimes. Jason didn't look happy at all, he had a deep frown on his face and slapped a hand over his face every time Steph spoke loudly or gestured too widely. Every few minutes he'd shoot a long suffering look of resignation at her, like he still couldn't believe she was there, but was accepting of his fate until he woke up from the nightmare that was her presence.

"Oh God." Steph slapped a hand over her face, mortified at her own train of though. Spending so much time there had turned her into as big a drama queen as Jason.

Besides her Cass chuckled behind the rim of her mug. "See?" She forcibly turned Steph's face back to the screen where Jason had an arm thrown over his eyes.

On that day, she hadn't been able to see it, but from higher angle of the camera, Steph caught a glimpse of the small smile that was there one second and gone the next.

"Happy?" Cass said.

"Sure Cass." Steph looked over to where Tim was looking through the more recent footage of Jason's stay in the infirmary. "He still blew a bunch of people up a few days after that.

"I don't think he did." Tim was tapping his left temple with his index finger. He gestured lazily at his screen with his other finger.

Steph launched her chair across the console, Cass following close behind, catching the back of Tim's chair to bring herself to a stop while her friend settled on the other side of him.

The time stamp placed the footage at being just a few hours before the breakout, but after Steph had left. A man in a white lab coat leaned over the comatose boy in the bed, looked him over whilst fiddling with the equipment, and scribbled on his clipboard.

"So they would have picked something up if it was him?" Steph asked, she'd already known they checked up in Jason every few hours, she's been there for a lot of them and honestly it would have been a little weirder if they hadn't.

The man leaned over Jason and produced from the folds of his coat a long, thick needle that he jammed into the boy's neck?

"More like they made sure it couldn't be him." Tim said.

"But, that's normal, it's just the medicine they give him." Steph said, her thawed chest starting to ice over again.

"No it's not." Tim said. "Nothing on his treatment plan indicated he was being given anything intravenously and I don't know of any drugs that are given in those quantities on a regular basis."

"Enough of this already." Dick sighed tiredly, stepping freshly showered to the mini-fridge next to the console. "He's gone, and if he doesn't want us to find him, we won't let's focus on what we _'can'_ be doing, huh?"

"Sheesh, who died and made you Batman?" Steph rolled her eyes and looked back to the screen. It was kinda scary how Tim's flat stare could burn into the back of her head the same way his glare could. "What, to soon?"

"Waaay too soon." Dick smirked as he took a swig from the bottle he'd retrieved. The older man ruffled Tim's hair as he walked by them to the staircase. "Don't stay up too late."

Tim let out a whoosh of air and turned back to Steph. "Anyway, it might have been some new drug they were testing out, but for that they'd need to go through miles of yellow…" The computer beeped and a few taps of a button later the DNA results popped up on screen. "…tape. Yeah it's his. I'll run a test fro foreign substances too, get the results tomorrow." He yawned and tapped a few more keys before getting up and stretching like an overtired cat.

"Yeah. Night Tim, Cass." Steph looked back at the footage, watching the man turn away from Jason again. She slipped into Tim's vacant seat and brought up the video enhancement software, though she already had a pretty good idea of who it was, even if the others didn't really care.

Minutes later Jeremiah Arkham's face appeared through the pixilated mess that was the asylums standard security cameras, tucking that needle away. It was actually kind of funny, seeing as how the forms that would allow a change in treatment.

"Asshole." She breathed and kicked off against the console, launching her chair over to the costume she's just changed out of.

.

.

.

Steph's path through Arkham that night was a little different from her usual route. For one, she wasn't actually going through Arkham at all, just scaling up the wall to visit a very different room.

Man, as normal as Jeremiah Arkham's office was the first time around, it was twice as creepy when she actually looked at the little details she'd neglected before.

There were files not just in drawers, but piled under the desks as well, and a smell that belonged more in a chemo ward that an actual office, the asylum was technically a hospital, but still. It took one look at the chair for her to be thankful she'd opted not to sit in it before, with all those weird stains and tough looking leather restraints on the arm rests and legs.

Maybe she was being a little nitpicky, but picking out things like that made her feel a little less guilty for digging through the old man's stuff. With a remorseful look at all the files in the ground, she moved to the filing cabinets and really hoped Jason's would be one of the organized files.

"D," she whispered, sliding the cabinet open and flicking through their files, despairing when she saw how many entries had been committed as John Does. After half an hour of looking through the many files, she thought of maybe looking under R or H instead.

Footsteps outside the door alerted her to a presence and she silently slid the cabinet shut, slipping out the window just as the door clicked open.

Deep creases covered Doctor Arkham's brow as he dropped into his chair, massaging his temples with a heavy sigh. The file tucked under his arm was dropped to the table with a disgusted flick of his wrist, another John Doe, she read before he flipped the file open and began writing in it.

Steph held her position until her arms where going a little numb watching his moving hand closely.

' _Batgirl what are you doing, I thought you were going home_.' Tim's sleepy voice almost startled Steph into letting go of her grapple and tore a light gasp from her throat.

Jeremiah was on his feet in an instant, marching towards the window faster than someone as scrawny as him, regardless of age should have been capable of.

Steph could have leaped out the window and hidden herself, gotten out of there before Jeremiah knew exactly who had been in his office, but he'd have still _'known'_ there was someone in his office.

She'd leaped past him and grabbed the folder before she'd even thought it through.

"You!" He growled, his spindly hands missing her cape by an inch.

"Need to borrow this bye!" She let out the words in a rush before the cold night air was nipping at her face again and she was falling through the air.

Whatever he said in protest she didn't hear, the folder in her hands weighing down on her more heavily than the chill in her lungs.


	13. Sedative

"I'm gonna kill him." Steph growled under her breath, barely feeling the tiny needle of rain that stabbed into her face.

' _Calm down Batgirl._ ' There was less of the stern authority in Bab's tone than usual, her attempt at being soothing without coddling on the job. _'We don't know yet that he did anything wrong.'_

" _I_ know he did." She'd been questioning evasive Arkham staff all night and she wasn't in the mood for false platitudes,

Jason had always been a little more open with her in days after his therapy sessions. It had been easy to believe the shrinks were actually helping him.

After reading through that file through, Steph could see how he would have wanted a distraction on those days. Harder to explain away how off he'd been the last few days before he'd gone missing, and no Bab's, Steph was sure Jason was as big and scary as they said, but no way had he gotten up and walked off all those drugs.

Narcoleptics and benzodiazepines and that whole spectrum of junk she couldn't even pronounce in her mind. Tim didn't have to tell her it could have killed Jason, she was sure the stuff had damn near killed her and she was ten times as healthy as a guy who'd been starving himself to avoid those effects.

Steph had to reel in her line mid swing to keep from dropping to the busy streets below. Her knees hit the rails at the edge of a rooftop hard enough to leave a nasty bruise, but she barely felt it, pulling herself up to sit on the thin metal bar.

Babs said they had to wait for Bruce to get back, because only he would know if anything criminal had happened. The paranoid bastard had locked away any real information under his personal clearance level, and wouldn't let any of them access it.

They had no way of knowing Arkham had done anything criminal regarding Jason without checking to see if the drugs had been signed off on by a legal proxy.

Jason had come back to life after all, who knew what kind of resistances he had to normal medications? The drugs could have been necessary.

Steph called bullshit. _'For Jason's privacy.'_ A squeaking mockery of their voices repeated in her head.

Tim said it could have killed Jason…

Something inside Steph shriveled up at the thought.

Jason dead wasn't something she wanted to think about at all, Arkham staging his breakout to hide the body.

The others were already coming up with plans for when (if) they found him, dead or alive, and none of them were pretty.

She was sitting on a rooftop, and Jason could be laying at the bottom of the ocean, and for some reason, the only thing she could think of was that she'd never get a chance to pay him back for cheating at that stupid card game where he'd cleaned out all her skittles.

Actually, some skittles sounded good, not like she had anything else planned. She grappled in the direction of the nearest convenience store.

Lost in thought, she barely noticed when something pricked the back of her neck, a few seconds later she was free falling from a hundred floors up, and she didn't notice anything at all.

000000000000000

Contrary to the spin put on them by the media, truth serums didn't actually make people tell the truth. Most of them just loosened lips in the same way as alcohol did, by removing inhibitions and making you a lot chattier than you would normally be.

All the questioner could do was hope one of the things you said was the answer to a previously asked question.

When he'd been wheeled to the dank… wherever the hell he was, he'd felt crushing disappointment before anything else. Then he'd noticed the man hovering over him, and rage had surged to the forefront of his mind.

Having his weak limbs – muscle relaxants Jason guessed – strapped down had ruled out any attempts at decking the freak though, and Jason deeply regretted the disorientation he hadn't been able to shake off when he'd first woken up.

He'd been injected with something else and left alone while every physical sensation save the throbbing bruise at his temple had faded away. His adrenaline had fueled his rage for hours after that, through a number of doses he was too out of it to count, and damnit if that needle didn't leave him feeling slimy for more reasons than one.

Now his barely clothed body was bloody where he'd fought against the restraints and his adrenaline had gone the way of the dinosaurs.

He was cold and shaky and even in the presence of that freak Jason's rage had abandoned him, leaving him to rely on his second line of defense…

"You're insecure, I get it with a face like that I would be too,but could you take off your creepy ass mask when you talk to me?" … being a little shit.

"Look at you." A hand raked through Jason's hair, "I wonder what thought process leads you to these…" the hand got caught in the bloodied strands and tugged harshly enough that without the restraints Jason would have been pulled from the table, "… terrible decisions."

"Same one that led to you thinking this was a good idea." Jason ignored the fresh blood trailing down his head, dripping into his eye. "Extreme lack of self preservation instincts."

To his mild surprise the Doctor chuckled and patted the side of Jason's cheek a little harder than he could have. Jason's growl of irritation went unnoticed while the man moved out of Jason's line of sight to. Yeah, that guy was number one on Jason's if he ever got out of there.

And the constant prickling at his fingertips reminded Jason that it really was a huge case of ' _if'_.

The needle appeared and Jason instinctively pulled against the strap holding his head in place as it drew nearer.

"Don't be so dramatic, you know this is no one's fault but your own."

"Mhmmhm." Jason shrugged as much as the bindings would let him while a piece of wood was forced into his mouth. At the very least, he wouldn't be biting his tongue off so, silver lining right?

The needle plunged into his neck and Jason focused on the wood splintering between his teeth while every nerve ending erupted into fire and things that couldn't have been there danced before his eyes.

God he hoped the deranged fuck wouldn't start with the Joker crap again. A chuckle and a crowbar later, Jason resolved to never hope for anything again, ever.

000000000000000

Steph felt a lot better than she's thought she would. The way her relationship with the Gotham underworld had been going she would have thought they'd want to make sure she never woke up at all.

Then again, it was also entirely possible someone thought she'd make a good hostage and was just waiting for her to wake up before they did whatever it was they were planning on doing with her.

"I knew the sedative wore off before you did." The rich female voice was accompanied by the sound off sloshing liquid and a strong spicy smell.

Of course it would be Talia. Steph was equal parts awed and put upon by the woman she saw when she opened her eyes.

"Did you take him?"She kind of wished her costume didn't cover quite so much skin, so she could feel the glossy silk sheets she'd been laid on, they just looked so soft. A lot softer than the beat down Talia would give her if the woman admitted having something to do with Jason's disappearance, because Steph had a feeling the daughter if Ras al Ghul wouldn't take attempted strangulation well.

"You're so sure this is about that child?" Talia waved her hand in a way that somehow conveyed her order for Steph to sit up without saying anything, weirdly enough it was eloquent enough that Steph felt compelled to obey.

"No one attacks me without it being about him anymore." Steph accepted the offered cup and saucer, but wasn't in any hurry to drink it, even when Talia took a dainty sip from her own cup. "And all of this did kind of start right around the time you showed up."

"Which coincides with your own visits, does it not?" The look the woman sent her was one of extreme disinterest.

"Yeah, but I know I didn't have anything to do with him being force fed things with longer names than some of the books I've read."

"I have no intention of fighting you, child, but you would do well to look into the many others in your circle who would be much more disposed to such a line of action against than I." Talia blew gently over the top of her tea, or maybe it was a sigh, with _'Damian's'_ mother, who knew?

"No one in _'my circle'_ would do something like that." Steph wasn't even going to open herself up to the _'idea'_ of the people she worked with being capable of something like that.

"Believe as you wish, I have no time to prattle with one of _his_ soldiers, I come with an invitation, one someone of your status would be foolish to refuse."

That wasn't ominous at all. Steph fought against the desire to roll her eyes lest Talia decided to have them plucked from her head.

"I kind of have to be looking for the guy you say you didn't kidnap." Steph eyed the lamp next to her bed, it looked like it was made with real gold, who the hell wasted _'gold'_ on a lamp? "So can you make it snappy?" Oh, Steph was gonna need teeth made of gold if she ever got home.

Talia chuckled, setting Steph even more on edge. "I'll offer you one call, during which you may request anything of me, and in return you will owe me and mine the same."

Steph wasn't crazy enough to put herself into debt with the league of shadows or whatever organization Talia was running them , but she also wasn't crazy enough to laugh in the woman's face, so instead she filled her mouth with the cooling tea in her hands.

Wow, it was spicy, like Alfred's ginger-cinnamon cookies times ten with a hint of something else Steph had never tasted before. She didn't exactly like it, but she wasn't going to spit it out either.

"Is this the tea you brought Jason?" She asked, taking another, smaller sip.

"This inferior blend?" Talia raised an eyebrow, that same look Alfred gave when someone had just said something too ridiculous for words.

' _Fine, give me the inferior tea, not like I care.'_

"I don't need your help with anything right now, so can we maybe take a rain check?"

"Even if they are not involved, what do you believe will happen when they find him?"

"They'll help him." Steph didn't hesitate before replying. Helping people was what they did, whether it was a bystander or a criminal, even a supervillian. They wouldn't let anyone suffer like Jason had, no matter how much they hated him.

"Then throw him right back for the situation to repeat itself." Talia set her empty cup down without so much as a clink. "In the name of ' _helping_ ' him. Slitting his throat would be kinder." Her expression shifted, so fast Steph could have imagined it, Talia actually looked angry. "In his current state he would never survive the kind of prison that could hold him."

"Well, what would _'you'_ do with him?"Steph's hands were clenched tightly enough that her knuckles ached.

"Had he proven a danger I have many suitable locations, but he has made his opinions on my interference known and the agreed upon time has not come." Here she smiled a little predatory smile. "I did not agree to turn down work regarding him before then."

Steph could practically feel her brain melting out of her ears, and she didn't even want to know what was going on between Jason and Talia. She had enough headaches trying to pick through the overcomplicated relationships she had to deal with on a regular basis.

Figured Talia had to come up with some convoluted plot to get involved instead of just moving in to help.

"Fine, I'll consider hiring you to find Jason." She accepted the card Talia gave her and was promptly escorted – blindfolded – from the premises before she could sully the shiny sheets again with her inferior butt.

One of the longest sighs she'd ever sighed left her throat and she was starting to feel a little petty regarding the lack of people skills that had Talia approaching her instead of the rest of Gotham's heroes.

Steph didn't ' _want_ ' to owe Talia al Ghul a favor, and she also didn't trust the woman, not when there was a core of trained detectives on the case already.

Still, she stored the card safely in her utility belt, but just because having her own personal line to a member of the league of shadows was a prerequisite of being one of the Bats, and it made her feel a little more like one of them.

She promised herself she'd never, ever use it.

Hours later, she was on a rooftop blinking at the midday sun with a mouthful of skittles that tasted like chewy ash, when the comm she'd deactivated buzzed in her ear.

"Let me guess, I shouldn't be out in broad daylight where the world can look upon my batty awesomeness?"

' _No, well yes, but no.'_ Tim sounded about as tired as she felt, so he'd probably gotten a few hours of sleep very recently. _'B is back and he wanted to debrief all of us.'_

"So what? I have to report to the cave?"

' _There's been a complication.'_ Steph could almost feel her lungs cave in when he took a deep breath. Nervous Tim was knew-Steph-wouldn't-like-what-he-said-next Tim _. 'Nightwing went to question Arkham and he flew the coop, we have no idea where he went.'_

Steph didn't say she was gonna kill him, because Tim would be more literal minded about it than Barbara, but she was gonna do something really bad if she found out Arkham had as much to do with it as the file suggested.

Innocent people didn't often run from the bats, not unless they had something to hide.


	14. Doctor

It became obvious before long that if anyone at the asylum knew what had happened to Jason, they weren't going to say anything. Not to Steph, and not to Bruce, who'd been along earlier in the night to try and wring out some piece of info.

She didn't even know what she was doing there, anymore. If the original freaking Batman couldn't get anyone to talk, then how could she?

Still, she wondered around the building, looking for something she couldn't put her finger on. She had a feeling there was something she, specifically was overlooking, but no amount of brains wracking and sleepless nights brought it out.

So she went by the places that were familiar to her, including Jason's old cell.

Baker let her in with a regretful expression on his face, closing the door more gently behind her than he ever had before.

It was so much like it always was that it almost hurt for her to see the cell empty. When she'd watched the surveillance footage in the cave it had been so easy to pretend he was still in there, dreading her eventual visit.

She looked through the cell, doing the same basic investigation as she would have done anywhere else. There was nothing underneath the mattress, or taped to the underside of the desk they'd used for their little poker tournament. His books weren't anywhere to be found, and now that she thought about it., she couldn't remember seeing him reading in any of the more recent footage.

The only thing in the shower was that same bottle of soap, and when she ducked down to look under the bed all she found was a dusty silver tray. From Talia's visit? Steph wiped away some of the dust, buffing the metal while she seated herself on the bed.

She was shocked for second at the severe expression on her cowled face. Geez, she was almost as bad as Bruce. Shaking her head she held the tray to her chest and leaned against the wall, taking some dark satisfaction in the darks streaks of grime left on the white blankets by her boots.

The cell shouldn't be that clean after what had happened in it, right under her nose.

She rested her head against the wall and moved her feet under the sheet some more, a smirk creeping its way onto her face. The tiny bit of levity granted by the action was ripped from her chest all at once, when she remembered that it didn't matter. Being childish wouldn't fine Jason.

Accepting that she wouldn't find anything new there, she left, letting Baker escort her to the infirmary instead.

"I, I'm sorry he's gone." The guard said, his cheeks flaring while he looked anywhere but at her.

"He's not." Steph rested her hand on one of the many beds, and Baker let out a nervous grunt as he left to wait at the door. "He's not." She insisted to the empty room. She knew he wasn't, he couldn't be.

His blood was no longer visible, a new bed pushed over where the stains had been, and she was overcome with a sudden need to know it the little flecks of crimson had been cleaned up along with everything else showing that the boy had ever been there at all.

She gripped the rails at the side of the bed tightly and pulled, the stiff wheels screeching louder than a thousand disturbed bats at sunset. The sound was familiar, grating against her ears as she tossed it across the room with a strength she didn't know she had.

The door slammed open while she stared at the spotless while tiles.

"Batgirl!" Baker cried reaching out as though he was going to try and restrain, her.

She ignored him and clutched the silver tray tighter, marching out of the infirmary, making no secret of the direction she was heading in. It took Baker only a few seconds of following after her too realize it too, and he practically shouted into his radio for backup, only reaffirming her suspicions.

On the night of the 'breakout', she'd heard that same screeching. At the time she'd been so wrapped up in her worry at the whole situation she hadn't given it the thought she should have.

A quartette of guards appeared in her path, Baker was still trying to talk her down. She struck out with the tray, crushing every scrap of the emotion boiling her chest to keep from injuring them further once they were down. There were some specs of blood on the edges of the gleaming silver now, but it could be cleaned as easily as the floor.

Factoring in how the side would be amplified by the extra weight, widened her search area, but there were still only so many places her path that night had intersected with the halls leading to the infirmary and it didn't take her long to cancel out all possibilities but one.

"Please don't." Baker begged, his hands still hovering uncertainly in front of him.

A batarang flew knocking out all the lights with a loud sequence of pops. Baker leaped back, a partial scream on his lips before the hall was filled again with a soft violet light that revealed a smear of hurriedly cleaned blood all across a nondescript mirror.

She didn't waste time looking for a latch, God knew enough had been wasted already. Her armored foot crashed into the reflective glass, effectively shattering it.

Baker backed up, horrified at the room behind.

Steph put her torch away. With the light of a dozen screens lighting up the hidden room she wouldn't need it.

On each screen, viewed from a different angle, was the same boy strapped to a large metal gurney.

"O, Batgirl here." She said coldly, the pool of ice in her chest spreading to the tips of her toes. "I found that evidence." She turned her icy look on Baker.

"I swear to God I never knew this was here."

.

.

.

They were worried about something, running around tossing things into cases. Jok… Jeremiah screeching at his two gigantic lackeys even more than he usually did.

Jason was too focused on not choking on his own vomit to properly gage what he was saying, but he knew it had to be important, so he tried anyway. Latches were unbuckled for the first time since he'd woken up on the gurney, and he was hoisted upright.

He threw up all over the chest of the man holding him and was promptly dropped to the ground.

Well there went his choking problem, the pain of hitting the ground wasn't even an afterthought right then, not with the way his body was convulsing. The asshole Doctors screaming however added just another layer of awful to his drug wracked mind, which he could have really done without.

"Idiots! I don't need him I injured now!"

There was a thump indicating that one or both of the lackeys had been slapped.

"Aw Jerryboy 's not their faul' ya fed me t; much." Jason wasn't sure his words were even intelligible, and they burned his throat, but the freaks renewed shouts, now directed at him could have almost been worth it.

"Get him to the next location!" Jeremiah yelled, storming off. "I'll retrieve the samples myself!"

Jason was pulled up and thrown into a nearby char hard enough to send the thing rolling backwards. They caught him soon enough and his arms restrained quickly to the bindings at the side. The other idiot knelt to restrain his legs.

And, yes they really were idiots, he was drugged, not unconscious.

His bare foot crashed into kneeling guy's face hard enough to rocket his nose straight into his brain, killing him instantly in a spray of blood. The other swore and grabbed a rod off a nearby table, electricity crackling at the end, he jabbed it at Jason, but the boy swerved the wheelchair to the side and kicked the rod, hitting it out of the man's hand.

He caught it between his calves and flipped it before launching it back at the man.

No fucking way was he going to let that thing touch him again. Jason's body convulsed again, and more bile burned its way up his throat. He spat it up before his jaw could lock up again and choke him.

Kicking off against the nearest wall, he threw the wheelchair back, speeding down the hall opposite the one Jeremiah was always disappearing into. Every time it slowed he kicked off again, keeping up the speed until he miscalculated and toppled the chair.

Lucky him he'd gotten away before they'd finished securing his wrists to the chair. He still had to dislocate several fingers to get them free. It took longer than it should have, but then, he didn't have a needle jabbing his neck yet, so he was willing to count it as a temporary win.

Using the slippery walls for support, Jason stumbled forward, urging one foot in front of the other. If he was going to die, and the increasing frequency of his convulsions told him that was a distinct possibility, it was going to be as far from that room as possible.

As far as possible seemed to after he'd counted out one and a half hours that felt more like one and a half days. There was nothing left in him to keep moving, and he pressed against the wall with a weak chuckle, thinking that maybe he'd be a little stronger if he hadn't skipped out on so many meals.

The asylum provided food would have left him even worse off, but he was pretty sure his paranoia in Blondie's case had been unfounded. Her cake really hadn't been that bad.

His legs gave out and he let himself slide to the ground. At least he wasn't tied down this time.

.

.

.

Turned out the visuals on the screens hadn't been live, just multiple recordings of Jeremiahs various attempts at making Jason 'admit to his delusions.'

Bruce himself had shown up along with Tim to analyze the footage in the hopes of the doctor saying something that would give away where he'd been keeping Jason. Well, she hoped, they were so certain of it that they were already discussing what they would do with Jason once they found him.

Steph stood in the hallway besides the mirror she'd ruined with a styrofoam cup of cold coffee in her numb hands. She'd stepped out when they'd started talking about the places they'd send him when he'd recovered from the things Arkham had been doing to him. Apparently there was some _'facility'_ in Central City.

"Hey, Batgirl?"

"What do you want?" Exhaustion kept the heat from her voice, but Baker knew the only reason she hadn't had him arrested was that there was no proof he'd known what he was hiding and she wasn't in the mood to fight over it.

"I, when, there were a few guards, the one's that worked more closely with Doctor Arkham th, th, they, they always…"

"The stuttering's not endearing when I hate you." Steph tossed her coffee through the office door of some shrink who'd been dumb enough to leave it open, right into the bin besides the desk.

"They bragged that they knew a p, place." He was watching his hands as he wrung then at level with his chest. "Where Doctor Arkham took the, the 'troubled' patients."

She regretted not having something to crush in her hands. "What?" She demanded, then advanced on him before he could answer, backing him into a wall. "You're only saying this now? When I've been asking for over a week?"

"I didn't think." He was on the verge of tears again. "I thought they were, and they were dumb, I thought they were just talkin' like they were…"

Steph groaned and regretted not being able to pinch the bridge of her nose with the cowl on.

"Okay, Jeff, I get you're freaked out, but if you're serious I need you to focus." She forced herself onto a more relaxed posture. "Can you take me there?"

He shook his head so fast Steph was sure it would screw off his shoulders had he motion carried on a second longer and she had to hold herself back from yelling at him.

"I have, people I have to…" he let out a long shaky breath. "But I can get you a boat."

.

.

.

And a boat she got. The water around the asylum were choppy, splashing her insulated suit with the frigid liquid, and slicking the hand she kept on the humming motor.

If the guard was to be believed – and his associates hadn't been drunk idiots – there was a hidden hatch to a hidden sublevel where she might find Jason.

Her nerves were on fire and not just because she'd left without saying anything to Bruce and Tim. They were busy with that horror show in the mirror room and she told herself she didn't want them distracted if she was chasing a dead end.

She slowed down once she'd reached the south side of the asylum and eased the boat along the slimy walls. Using her night vision it didn't take long for her to reach the find the a cleverly disguised steps leading to a rusted door frame.

Minutes later she was walking through sticky looking halls that reminded her a little too much of that Silent Hill game she'd played with Cass. Every corner she turned down, the eerie prickling under her skin only increased.

Wow, she let her cape fall over her shoulders, draping her in the warm fabric that did nothing to dissipate the chill, and she'd though the dark asylum above had been creepy.

Just when she was beginning to regret not having backup within five meters, she heard a cacophony of consecutive crashes down the hall.

"Where?!" The voice that screamed chased the chill from her bones and replaced it with something warms enough to fry an egg on.

She ran soundlessly towards the sound, past numerous empty rooms set up similarly to the one on the tapes. The one all the shouting was coming from was also the only one that was lit.

She'd meant to get a look at the place before she actually went in, she really had, but sometimes, well, sometimes she didn't mind that people expected her to do dumb things anyway. Meant they wouldn't be as disappointed when she actually did.

Arkham was wiping up a bloody stain on while a man convulsed on the grimy tiles not four feet from him. The hand poking out from some shaft wasn't hard to miss either.

"Arkham!" She growled, cracking her knuckles as she advanced.

The man actually had the gall to look annoyed when he turned his head towards her, it faded pretty fast when her fist crashed into his nose with a crack so satisfying she shuddered.

"Where is he, Doctor?" Her whole body was shaking as she watched him try to crawl away, couldn't have that, huh? She stomped down on his back, and his head slammed into the floor, the sound echoing around the massive empty base.

He growled, and suddenly there was a syringe in his hands, he tried to leap at her with it, but it was pretty obvious he was too used to dealing with people he'd weakened to a degree that they couldn't fight back.

All it took to disarm him was a sharp kick that sent the serum rolling across the floor. She grabbed a fist full of his fancy shirt and hauled him to his feet, slamming him against the wall and tightening her grip around his scrawny throat, feeling the way his neck muscles worked under her hands as he tried to breathe through the hold.

"I asked you where he is, you psychopathic piece of filth!" She shook him roughly, the back of his head banging against the wall.

"You won't find him." Jeremiah chuckled, the sound resembling a rusty chainsaw more than anything.

With a growl, she tossed him to the ground and repeatedly rammed the steel toes of her boots into his unprotected ribs. She tried not to break any bones, but she didn't try very hard.

"Bet you had fun playing your sick little games with him, huh?" She caught sight of the syringe he'd tried to stick her with and grabbed it while dragging Arkham over to the gurney.

For the first time since she'd met him, he looked afraid.

"I'm not gonna tie you down." She growled, she hadn't noticed how bloody the restraints were, how hard Jason had fought to free himself, and now that she did, any sympathy she could have felt for Arkham evaporated. "Because I," she hit him again, this further splitting his swollen lip, "don't," another hit, this one aimed at his jaw, "have to."

She gripped his shirt again and raised the syringe high above him, delighting in the way his fearful eyes followed the thing he'd used to torture who knew how many people.

"Did you get a kick out of making someone so strong weaker that you?" She asked lowering the needle slowly to his neck. "Wanna see how it feels to be on the other side?" If she could have heard her voice right then it would have given her nightmares.

"He got away!" Arkham yelled, his eyes growing bright and desperate. "These idiots let him get away." His words were slurred and hard to understand past his swollen lips, but she had a lot of practice with that kind of thing.

"Which way." Steph let her glance slide to the puddle of blood and prayed it wasn't Jason's.

"It won't matter if you find him now." Arkham choked out. "He'll be dead before morning, and I need the data."

"Damn you're a bastard." Steph didn't have time work him over for answers on the off chance he even had them. She cracked her staff against his head twice in quick succession and left him there, flicking off the light switch.

The blood was still fresh, no more than a few hours old at most.

She lit the room with violet light again and saw four bloody lines trailing away from the puddle and disappearing down a side hall.

Without a glance at the unconscious monster, she took off after the trail.

There were bloody footprints on the walls every few meters, the lines on the ground zigzagging. She knew before she'd found the chair how he had to have been traveling, seeing the piece of old equipment only confirmed it.

The blood trail stopped even before that, but she could follow along by the marks he'd left in the dust.

"Hood!" She called, more to have a break from the heartbeat pounding in her ears than because she thought he'd hear her. "Hey, I'm coming to find you, just hold on okay."

Eventually a clear an uneven lump appeared, obstructing the otherwise clear tunnel. It took shape as she approached and her breath caught in her throat as she skidded to her knees besides him.

His skin was taught and even paler than before, his skin freezing and covered in marks she didn't want to look too closely at, but he was breathing and there was a pulse under her finger tips.

"Jason." She breathed, burying her hand in long hair that had started to darken at the roots again and lifting his head off the ground. "You'll be okay, okay? We'll get you some warm clothes and a real doctor and…" _and a facility in Central City._

Her hand paused midway to her comm. Maybe some other place wouldn't be as bad, but she'd spent so much time thinking _Arkham_ wasn't so bad.

"Come on." With a grunt she hoisted him up and nearly collapsed with relief when he got his feet under them and out a little bit of his weight on them. "You'll be fine," She promised despite the tremors running through him. "I'll make sure you are."

.

.

.

It was almost always raining in Gotham. Thunderstorms that lit up the sky and shook the buildings to their foundations until even the bravest doubted the huge structures would be standing in the morning were almost a monthly occurrence.

Still the one raging outside the clinic left its lone doctor with a feeling, though not quite ominous, was unsettling all the same.

She was so tensed in expectation of something that when she heard a frantic knocking at her door, she hesitated in answering for the first time since she'd set up shop.

With a headshake, she dismissed such childish thoughts, there was someone on the other side of the door, and if they were that desperate then it could be something serious.

As soon as she'd unlocked it, the door blew open with the force of the wind, crashing against the wall with a BOOM as loud as the thunder, a large shape silhouetted against a sudden strike of lightning.

"Doctor Thompson." Stephanie stepped in, decked out in full Batgirl regalia, struggling to hold up the tall, thin figure braced at her side. "Help him, please help him." She sobbed, handing the boy over before backing up, a hand pressed tightly against her mouth.

He wasn't breathing.


	15. Sunlight

Nothing made sense.

It was cold and hot all at the same time.

He couldn't stop moving, but something was holding his limbs down so tightly he couldn't breathe.

Tremor's ran through his body at least he thought they did, like someone had planted the cellphones of a thousand truant teenagers under his skin, and their parents just weren't having any of it.

Cellphones.

Under his…

Fuck, that wasn't funny at all. He had to get them out before he went into septic shock.

Only he couldn't move his fucking arms, they were strapped down, his legs too, he couldn't even move his head to chew them off because there was something pressed into his mouth and whenever he tried spitting it out a laughing face with a smile painted in blood pressed it back in.

He kept trying anyway because he had to get the bugs out from under his skin.

They were crawling around, just like they must have been when they'd, when…

Back in that box. Dark and damp and he was still shaking but he couldn't get out this time because his arms and legs were weight down and someone was laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing…

He curled his fingers, the only part of him that was doing what he told them, and found that his nails bit into his skin.

So he scratched open his palms, hoping something, anything would crawl out.

Hey if the worms could escape through his hands, then maybe he could too.

But for that the cuts would have to be bigger, bigger, bigger…

"Jason stop!"

Hospital room, it was a hospital room. Why was he in a hospital room when he was supposed to be underground?

His mind went under.

…

..

.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Bomb, camera.

EKG.

What the…

He fought back the vice grip of sleep.

"…had she not seen his eyes likewise turned to towards Mister Darcy, with an expression of half…"

He knew that… Why was he hearing it next to an EKG? He wanted to see who he was sharing a room with, but he couldn't open his eyes in time.

The story jumped ahead again.

"…highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first…"

Beep. Beep

It was quiet, there was no one there. Dark. He let sleep take him willingly that time.

"…bananas to go on broiler grill as soon as it heats." A pause. "I don't even know what a broiler grill is, but this is kinda making me hungry. Find…"

Blank. He caught onto the words before they faded away.

Gravity Rainbow. They were from Gravity Rainbow. He'd read it in, damn he couldn't remember.

"…to the bananas in the skillet and broiler." Why the fuck is Blondie reading Gravity Rainbow? "Hey Jason, have you ever tried to make a banana breakfast? Looks kinda…"

"No." Light burned his eyes and there were bandages covering skin that felt like he'd gottem dead things all over him and it stank, the smell of decay invading his nose, choking him and…

Vanilla…

He opened his eyes despite the light, but all he could see was the curtain of gold covering his face. Vanilla, Gold?

Not Gold, blonde.

She wasn't wearing the Batgirl suit, not…

.

.

.

Jason hadn't moved much since he'd tried to bite Doc Thompkins' fingers when she'd fed him that black stuff. He'd babble some nonsensical nonsense every few minutes, and his face would scrunch up pain every time she stuck him with another needle, but that was about it.

He'd been even more still over the past few hours, the only sign of his life, the slight rise and fall of his chest. It was just similar enough to the way he'd been the last few days before his disappearance to make her uneasy.

Leslie said it was good, it meant the nasty stuff Arkham had injected him was finally working out of his system.

Steph had taken that as meaning Jason would wake up soon and had brought a bunch of books so he wouldn't get bored enough to try and get out of bed when he did. That had been almost a full day ago, and he was as still as ever. It felt weird to talk to him when he was like that, so she'd been reading the books herself when she came to see how he was doing.

It brooked no further reaction that talking had, but she still asked him questions sometimes, thinking that maybe he would be like those internet guys that got all worked up when people didn't _'understand'_ the message. All he did was sleep through it, sans the twitchy thing his face did when the room was quiet.

Anyway, when Jason said, "No," she didn't get her hopes up that it was a conscious answer to her question and not whatever was lingering in his messed up subconscious. Then he'd frowned like he had when they'd played ghost and she leaped to her feet, watching him anxiously.

He muttered something she couldn't make out and his eyes slid open just a fraction before he shut them with a hiss, and arm flopping over to cover his face.

"Jason." She whispered so she wouldn't wake any of the other over night patients down the hall. She leaned close, her hair falling over her shoulders and pooling all around his neck.

"Blondie." He batted the strands away, but she barely noticed, leaning forward to wrap her arms around him as best she could without pulling out the I.V in a tight hug.

"You're okay." She whispered the same words she had when he'd been in the throes of drug induced hallucinations that had had him trying to flay the skin from his hands.

"S'focating." He struggled to bring up arms that were trapped under his blankets and she pulled away so fast she got whiplash.

"Sorry, are you…"

He sneezed and glared at her, but without the heat behind it that had made him scary before, it was almost like a pout. A pout from a very angry porcupine that was raring to launch it's spikes at her woth the barest provocation.

That thought gifted her with the metal image of Jason as a sonic-esque hedgehog scowling at a very confused Bruce.

She chuckled and dropped back into her chair, fixing her gaze on the real Jason only once the flush had faded from her cheeks.

He was looking around the room and trying to worm his way out from under the blankets, while the beeps from the heart monitor sped up erratically.

"Calm down!" She waved her hands in front of his face, before helping him free his arms from the brightly colored blanket she'd brought from home. "You're safe here. It's just Leslie's clinic, you remember Leslie, right?"

He clapped a hand over his mouth, a gesture she'd seen often enough on surveillance footage to never want to see it again.

"You're okay." She said again, calmly as softly as she could while still being heard. "You're not in Arkham, or wherever else you think you are. See, she very carefully lifted the fringe of the blanket hanging over the edge of the bed and brought it up high enough for him to see. "I got you a teletubby blanket, cause I figured you'd hate it and wake up sooner, they don't allow teletubby blankets in Arkham, because of that guy, I forget his name."

"Doodlebug?" Jason's voice hitched on the last syllable, but his hands weren't over his mouth anymore.

"Yeah, him." Steph edged around the bed to the sink that was on the other side and filled up a glass of water. "Do you need anything, cause I can get it for you, there's a store just across the street. Leslie say's you're not allowed solids yet, but I can sneak in some candy, or…" Damnit, she was usually better in those kinds of situations. She held the glass just within his reach, so he could take it or not.

He did, and finished it off almost in one gulp, holding onto the glass with a white knuckled grip. He breathed more easily with his hands away from his mouth, taking in deep shuddering lungfulls of air until it evened out.

"You want some more water?" Steph asked after he'd sunk back into his pillows, he wordlessly handed back the glass and she refilled it.

He took small sips of the water, watching something she couldn't see move slowly around the room.

"Are you seeing something?" Steph moved back to the other side of the bed and he flinched when she sat down again.

"No." He shook his head and threw an arm over his eyes, bringing the glass up to his lips with the other.

"Leslie says any hallucinations will go away in like, two days max, so if you do see anything weird you shouldn't be too freaked out by it, kay? Unless it's me, cause, I'm not weird, or freaky and I'll proly still be around in two days."

He scoffed and peeked at her over his arms. "What're you doin here Blondie?"

"I'm here to make sure you don't escape."

"Oh." He sighed pressing the arm more tightly against his eyes, his hold on the glass slackening until it nearly sloshes over. "Right."

"Not really!" She grabbed the glass and shifted aside the books on the bedside table to put it down. "I just, I. But I'd like if you didn't leave anyway. The others don't know you're here, and Leslie promised not to say anything. I told her you were my school friend, so if she asks you're an English major, but o don't think she believed me, but she promised not to tell, and you might have another seizure if you get…"

" _Another_ seizure?" He dropped the arm entirely to gape at her unbelievingly.

"Yeeaah." She looked around for that hole that was supposed to be swallowing her up right about then, the one labeled, ' _Leslie warned you_.' "But it's okay, it wasn't serious she caught it before it could do any real damage, we. We're just a little scared you have one where there's no one around to help, huh?"

While she spoke his face grew progressively paler, when it turned an interesting shade of green she lunged for the stainless steel bowl at her feet, thrusting it in front of his as he threw up a clear sticky liquid that thankfully didn't slosh over its wide rim. When he was done, and she was sure he wasn't going to start up again she got him some more water and tucked him under the blankets again.

"How long until I go back?" He bit the words out.

"You're not." Steph set the glass back down with maybe a little more force than was necessary. "Not to Arkham anyway. Don't worry about it right now though. Just, try and relax so you can get better."

"He'll try and find me, he wants to know…"

Here Steph scoffed and settled back into her chair with a satisfied smirk. "Hard for him to try anything with four broken ribs, a cracked jaw and a concussion."

"How did _'you'_ find me then?"

"Oh I didn't tell you?" She crossed her legs and leaned back, her smirk widening. "That's why I'll be here for the next two days. I'm benched for putting Jerry in the ICU while you ran off into the night and not even paying attention which way you were going. I also busted up all the cameras, destroying vital evidence." She shrugged. "Whoops."

.

.

.

After the first day, the things he still had to remind himself weren't real stopped walking around the room, instead sticking to the corners where he could easily pretend to ignore them.

Whether it was intentional on their part or not, the room he was in halted almost all of his panic attacks before they even got started. Everything but the hideous blanket was colored in soft, clashing pasted colors, pink walls, yellow and blue tiles, nutritional posters plastered randomly over the vertical surfaces.

It looked like a child had decorated it, but the whole set up – especially that fucking blanket – was so different from anything in Arkham that even in the dark it was hard to mistake it for that hellhole.

Not that it was ever dark. The lights only went off when there was sunlight pouring in from a small window that looked to him like one of those huge things they fitted in palaces. It was when he watched that patch of sunshine move across the room as the day progressed he could believe he was out of Arkham for good.

"Then I told him I'm just not in the right headspace to start a new relationship right now, and he…" Blondie kept talking, her expressive voice not quite melding into the background along with the sounds of the city that made it through the walls, waving her hands and swishing hair almost the same color as the sunlight.

"I want spaghetti-ohs." He said abruptly to keep his mind from wandering further.

"You're not allowed solids yet." She pouted a little at having her story interrupted. "You'll just throw it up."

"So? I throw up everything I eat." He pushed his hair out of his face, he'd never really cared for cold tinned foods when there were other things available, but right then he really did want spaghetti-ohs. "I will literally sell you a fucking drug lord for a tin of spaghetti-ohs."

"Fine." She groaned and got up, "but if Leslie asks you got it by some secret league of shadows method."

The door clicked shut and just like that he was alone again. The patch of sunlight was stretched over the bed, making the colors on the blanket pop even more. He moved his hand to rest in the light and ignored the chuckling shadow in the corner.

The glint of deep red serum and a sharp, thin point. It took a step forward, grinning widely…

The door banged open.

"I had to buy a tin opener too, cause otherwise I'd have to ask Leslie for one and I couldn't do that when…" She followed his eyes to the corner and crumpled up a piece of paper from her pocket. "Go away." She demanded, the ball of paper flew at the specter then flew through the specter and bounced off the wall.

It didn't really change anything, but a reminder that the things weren't there was welcome anyway. He caught the tin and opener she tossed his way and studied both for any signs of tampering.

"There's this cute little diner on the corner of fourth and main." He said as he opened the tin. "Check the basement."

She typed the address on her cell phone and nodded sharply before dropping onto her chair and leaning forward, resting her head in her hands.

"So." She chirped. "How do those spaghetti-ohs taste?"

"Like heaven."


	16. Trust

Even if only a fraction of what he saw on the news was accurate, it was pretty easy to tell Gotham City was going to shit… again.

He couldn't be sure exactly what was going on, or who had instigated the whole thing, but the gang war Blondie was so worried about was looking more and more likely the longer he looked at it. Enforcers were turning up dead, graffiti marking being tagged over with symbols he hadn't ever seen before.

No wonder the Bats had been running themselves ragged enough that Blondie had been willing to got to one of the Red Hood's contacts. Sticky rat was probably in prison, too bad, seeing as he had his pudgy fingers in everything, he'd made a good, scared informant.

Not that Jason had much use for those when he was stuck pacing the little room with only the T.V and a few whispered conversations that passed through the shut door from the gang members who came into the free clinic to get their various bullet holes stitched shut.

A trio of pills and a glass of water sat on the stands next to the narrow bed, made neatly with the brightly colored blanket folded at the foot of the mattress. He could leave at any time, would have already of not for Leslies stern warnings about the possible withdrawal symptoms that could still hit.

He'd seen enough of what those could do to be wary of forgoing her advice.

Those pills though…

There was nowhere he could ditch them in the time it would take for The Doctor and Blondie to finish their hushed conversation on the other side of the door. He wandered if they knew he could hear every word they said and were just being quiet to avoid being heard by someone else.

Pale green, bright yellow and a small white capsule sitting innocuously just in sight. His back pressed against the wall just under the window. If there was any silver lining to the muscle mass he'd lost in Arkham, it was that he could fit through that little square if escape became necessary.

Risk of a stroke though…

He pinched the bridge of his nose a glared through his bangs as the door opened to reveal Leslie, a stern frown on her wrinkled face, and the current Batgirl wringing the edge of the pink shirt poking out under her denim jacket.

"Hey Jay." The girl pressed her blonde locks behind her hair as Leslies frown deepened.

"You're not supposed to be out of bed yet, young man." If he didn't know any better, Jason would have guessed Bruce had learned his trademarked bat-growl from her. Considering her age though, she would definitely have throat cancer by then if she'd tried that voice when Bruce had been impressionable to ick it up, and she looked too healthy for that.

"There's nothing wrong with my legs." Jason slouched a little more against the wall, projecting an air of lazy confidence. "Unless I fall and break one, I've had enough bed rest to last me the rest of my life."

"Stubborn." Her eyes fell on the untouched pills, and his followed unwillingly before shooting back at Blondie. "You're likely to break more than your legs if you fall in your state." He was more relieved than he would have thought possible in dealing with an old woman when she turned and left without saying anything else.

He still had to endure Blondie's less than happy groan in the seconds that followed the tense silence.

"Is it at all possible for you to go a day without being an ass?" She dropped bonelessly into the chair she'd doctored with more pillows than should have been legal. "She's just trying to help you Jason, and you're dropping way too many hints about not being a normal frat guy."

Trying to help? Yeah, her and every shrink in Arkham.

"She figured it out the first time I opened my mouth." Jason waved his hand dismissively. "And no, you can't convince me to take that stuff."

"Oh come on." She rolled her eyes. "I promised you would, and it's not like they're gonna make you sick, Jay. They'll actually make you not get sick. "It's just three little…"

"Moxifloxin, Dramamine and methylphenidate." Jason listed off, keeping his voice level despite the implications of the last one.

"Ooooh, you can remember the bog sciency names that I bet you made up, they sound really made up." She waved her hands in front of her, before turning her attention to the T.V screen. "What if you just take the antibiotic?" She picked up the green tablet, you know you can't just stop them without finishing the course. She tip toed dramatically to the door and pressed her ear against it, before stage whispering loudly enough that someone on the other side would have no problem hearing. "I'll give you the candy bar I snuck in."

"No thankyou. The spaghetti-ohs were bad enough, I don't want to know what cheap chocolate tastes like coming back up."

"The spaghetti-ohs were you own fault, and Doc said the Drama-whatever will make it so that doesn't happen anymore." She returned to the T.V and began messing with the built in DVD player.

"I was watching that." He sighed, but moving across the room wasn't worth the effort.

"This is better." She pulled out a plastic case and proudly showed him the cover.

"The corpse bride?" he was sure his eyebrows were trying to escape his face with how high they rose. Who in their right mind made a kids show called that.

"I think you'll really identify with the characters." She said seriously, the effect ruined by her failure to keep the grin off her face up until the last second.

Jason moved a little closer to squint at the stick thin blue people on the cover. "Fucking creepy lookin'."

She nodded enthusiastically. "And I brought popcorn too."

"Fine, but I'm still not taking the Ritalin."

.

.

.

"Die, die, we all passed away, don't wear a frown cause it's really okay, you might try to hide and you might try to…"

' _Must you clutter the channel with you horrendous singing, Fatgirl_?' Damian tried out his Batman voice over the comms that night.

"It's catchy." Steph defended, swinging her way down a fire escape to give some loitering drug dealer a minor heart attack. She didn't mention that catchiness aside, the song was stuck in her head because Jason had liked the musical number so much they hadn't even been able to finish the movie with the amount of times they'd rewatched it.

She wondered how mad he'd get if she pointed out how young throwing his arm over his face every time he laughed made him look.

' _It's a little morbid considering_.' Tim's voice was just a hint tighter than normal.

"I didn't really die, Tim." Steph looked up at the sky that was just beginning to turn a little grey. Almost time to head home. "But hey, if I had, would that make Tam Victoria?"

' _What are you idiots blathering on about now_?' Damian growled.

' _You've never watched the corpse bride, Dami_?' That Dick used the boy's real name meant Batman and Robin were either real close to their home base, or they'd gotten their already.

' _What does Tam have to do with that movie?_ ' Tim asked, drowning out Dick excitedly trying to convince Damian that they _'had'_ to watch the movie before their next patrol.

"Nothing." Steph sighed and began the trek back to her bike. The next day, well technically it was already Saturday, and she was looking forward to having a good night's sleep for once.

' _Hey, Batgirl can we talk before you head home tonight?'_ Tim sounded about as tired as she felt. _'Off the comms?'_

"Where?" Steph held back a yawn and powered on the bike.

"That's what I wanted to ask you."

She let out a little yelp when Tim appeared, dropping out of the sky like a shadow and landing in front of her with a muted thump.

"What the hell Ti…" She caught herself just before saying her name and tried to punch him.

He ducked away from her fist and looked almost like he was going to chuckle before his face went that steely cold that reminded her of Bruce on one of his better days. She followed him up to a rooftop before he spoke.

"Where is he?" Tim asked, "And please don't pretend not to know who I'm talking about?"

"Hood?" Steph guessed, because really, there were multiple people he could be asking about.

"We found some things on the tapes we brought back to the cave that had B worried." Tim brought a hand to the back of his head and looked towards the asylum standing out against the lightening sky in the distance. "We went back to Arkham to check the ones we didn't get a chance to move and all we found was a pile of smoking film."

"Oh, _those_ tapes." Her distaste for the topic permeated every one of her words, not that Tim didn't already know that before he brought it up. "Hood's gone, why are you still watching those things?"

"Because Doctor Arkham was asking him a lot of dangerous questions and we need to know how many of them Hood answered. Or at the very least why he'd go through all the trouble of burning all the tapes, not that he had to have a reason…"

She wanted to think Tim meant they suspected Arkham of getting rid of the evidence himself, but the guy was still in the hospital, and not exactly capable of talking, they both knew that. And Tim would call her out on playing dumb if she tried to deflect.

"You really think Jason snuck back into Arkham to burn all those tapes, that he even knew they were their?"

"He knew how to manipulate his way into those tunnels then who knows what else he…"

"You watched so many of those things, you saw what that… thing did to him." She wished she didn't have her cowl on so she could tug at her hair, but all she managed to do was raise her hands about level with her head to keep them away from Tim. "You really think he'd put himself through that?!"

"What if he was faking, or he didn't know what he was in for." His voice that fake calm he used whenever he thought someone was being childish. "I know you think you know him, Steph, but we know him better, and it doesn't take a genius to trick a good person like you into thinking he needs your help, we have to consider the possibilities…

"What, that he's Harley Quinned me?" Her fists clenched tightly at her sides as she stared him down. "I don't know where he is, and I'm too tired to deal with this right now, goodnight Tim."

Maybe she ' _didn't'_ know Jason as well as them, but she'd been their when the little strength he'd used to put a bit of weight on his feet had given out. They hadn't been their when she'd had to drag him all the way to Leslies and he'd just stopped breathing before she was even close.

They hadn't seen him screaming as soon as his lungs worked and almost dying from a seizure he was too young to have had, or trying to claw his own hands open because he thought there was something eating him from the inside out.

She knew Jason hated being seen as weak, and wouldn't pretend he was for anyone, wouldn't _'let'_ anyone pump him full of drugs just to make the act more believable, not when Leslie couldn't even coerce him into taking her mildest pain medication. She knew he hadn't been the one to burn the tapes because he was still too sick to leave his little room at the clinic.

Tim's firm grip on her shoulder kept her from actually reaching her bike.

"You're worried about him, I get it." At least he wasn't using robot voice anymore, but she still didn't turn, carefully keeping her watery eyes shielded from his view. "And…" he paused, like what he said next took something out of him. "You're not the only one, but we can't all afford to be compromised, someone has to consider the possibilities. And hurt or not, he's still very dangerous, and very angry with the people who put him in that situation, with us. There is the possibility that he answered those questions truthfully and we need to know so we can be prepared for that possibility when Arkham wakes up."

He sighed loudly and Steph got the feeling he wanted to remove his cowl as much as she did hers. "I'm not going to throw him back in the psychiatric ward. I just need to talk to him."

"You know he hated me visiting him in Arkham." She swung a leg over her bike. "What makes you think he'd hate seeing me out of Arkham any less? But if he does show up, for his revenge or whatever cause I annoyed him, I'll let you know, kay?"

"Fine." He checked his watch and shot a glare at in the general direction of the business district.

"Big day tomorrow?" Steph asked, a little more cheer in her voice. It wasn't fair to blame Tim for something he'd had no part in, something he didn't have a clue about, because the truth was, none of them had seen Jason since he'd first gone missing from the Arkham infirmary, and if she hadn't either, she might've thought those things too.

"You have no idea, wish I could sleep in like you." He smiled tiredly and shook his head.

"Actually, I think I'm gonna go right to Leslie's clinic from here, she's more busy on Saturdays than anything." Steph powered on her bike and waved over her shoulder. "Seeya soon Red."

.

.

.

Jason bit down on two pieces of toast with a sharp hiss as Leslie applied more antiseptic to the raw scabs along his chest.

"Don't you have a super high pain tolerance or something?" Steph's tongue poked her cheek while she tried to apply the glitter glue to her poster as accurately as possible.

"High pain tolerance doesn't equal masochist." He shot back, turning to glare at her over his shoulder.

"Sit still." Leslie ordered, griping his elbow and forcibly pulling him back into position. "And it'll hurt a lot less. Of course it wouldn't hurt at all if you'd taken the sedative."

He didn't bother making a reply and Steph carefully moved her poster to the other side of the room where it could dry safely away from bloody bandages.

"Maybe if you're good Doc'll let you a have a lollipop." Steph chirped, cutting away at some of her left over cardboard.

"Does she have to be here?" Jason groused, just before wincing as Leslie peeled away the bandages on his arms, taking away a fair amount of scabbing as she did so.

"If she keeps sneaking you candy she won't be much longer." Leslie shot a pointed look at Steph's bag, which did in fact have a few packs of skittles hidden away for a poker rematch now that there were no reflective surfaces for Jason to cheat off.

"Hey." Steph shot a similar look at Jason. "You like having me around; you haven't told me to get out even once."

"Because I know you won't fucking listen and my words are precious." He dutifully held up his arm for Leslie to wrap the fresh bandages around his cleaned scrapes.

Steph winced, glad not for the first time that the Doctor hadn't pressured her much harder for answers than she would any of her usual patients. She suspected it was less out of respect for their privacy than because she'd pulled enough leather fragments out of the wounds the first time she'd cleaned them to have a pretty good idea.

"Heh, precious." She chuckled, earning her a long suffering sigh and an eye roll from the guy who had half the Gotham underworld scared shitless.

A few triangles of cardboard dropped to the floor and Steph taped up the edges of a crown, making sure not to look up when Leslie started on the Jason's hands, when it came to those, Jason didn't so much as twitch in protest, going silent and still as a statue.

The cardboard crown was smeared with a faster drying glue stick and had half a tub of gold glitter dumped over it before she began arranging multi colored sequins over its surface.

Frantic screams for help and a slammed door made everyone in the room jump a little, with an order to stay put, Leslie rushed to the waiting room. In the few seconds the door was open, Steph got a look at the men, all wearing gang colors, carrying one of their own into the clinic.

"Wow, I hope that guy's okay." Steph dropped the crown onto the stand and watched the door herself.

"Shoulder wound, didn't hit an artery." Jason shrugged, reaching for antiseptic cream Leslie had dropped in her rush.

"So he will be okay?" Steph dusted some loose glitter off the crown.

"Unfortunately." He dipped his fingers into the cream, but a spasm had him knocking it off the bed before he could put it on his other hand.

"That's mean." She retrieved the cream before it could spill.

"Why?" Jason huffed, swinging his legs onto his bed. "He got hurt cause he stuck up some store and the clerk wasn't having it, now that sick kid isn't gonna get help cause the Doc'll spend hours fixing his mistake."

"Hold this." She set the crown on his head, shocking some light back into dimmed teal eyes. She washed her hands before lifting his off his knee and forcing herself to look at the ugly, self-inflicted wounds.

If Tim saw Jason the way he was then, rolling his eyes at the dumb crown, but unable to take it off his head without aggravating his open antiseptic covered palms, there was no way he'd think he was involved.

Tim could get them to stop looking for Jason, at least for a while, at least until he was a little better, and she trusted that Tim wouldn't tell the others where Jason was unless it was really necessary, not if she made him promise.

Jason yawned and slumped over into his pillows, while Steph got the bandages. His eyes slowly slid closed, and he was asleep, his breaths deep and even, but the time she tied off the fresh dressings.

She trusted Tim, but Jason trusted her, at least enough to stick around despite her connection to the people he was sure would toss him right back into the situation he'd just gotten out of.

Sliding into her chair she took in the mess she'd made of the room, little pieces of paper littering every surface, she'd even gotten a few globs of sticky glitter on most of the library books he'd left scattered on every horizontal surface but the floor.

Jason let out a huff and turned his head a bit more into his pillow, nudging the crown until it covered a portion of his face.

She leaned over, pillowing her head in the arms she'd folded on the mattress as she let out a sound that was somewhere between a sob and an amused snort. He trusted her enough to fall asleep with that thing on his head and a group of gangsters in the other room.

She'd know Tim for years, he was easy to trust, and Jason? Jason was mad that a guy who'd been shot got priority over a kid with a cough, he'd threatened to mail pieces of her to her mother and thrown ice cream at her and ignored her very presence for weeks. Jason wasn't easy to trust.

With a sigh, she pressed her head against his arm and slid her own scratchy eyes shut.

But she wanted to trust him, she really, really did.

In the end she didn't have to worry about whether or not to tell Tim at all. She fell asleep and the next thing she knew she was on the bed, tucked under the colorful blankets. All the glitter and clippings had been cleaned from the room, and the books were stacked neatly on the bedside stand, topped with three pieces of stiff paper the size of credit cards.

When she sat up to get a look at what was scrawled across the cards, the crown she'd made tumbled of her head and she only barely caught it before it could smash into the floor.

The cards all said the same thing, but each was decorated differently with an obscene amount of glitter.

'IOU'

Jason was gone.


	17. Three Weeks

The tension in the city was growing more and more every day. Tim was so busy he hardly showed up at the fancy business college he'd just been starting to put some effort into.

Bruce stopped looking into the league of shadows' involvement only a few days after Jason vanished from Leslie's clinic. The original Batman was patrolling the streets more than he had since he'd gotten back from his little time jump adventure, and he was not going easy on the criminals unlucky enough to get in his way.

That week notes were made and filed away in the safest corner of her mind to never be the source of interruption for one of his ongoing investigations. She almost felt sorry for the ringleader or ringleaders when they eventually found them. She had a feeling they were going to wind up in a lot of pain for a long time.

Everyone was tiptoeing around the man, even Dick and Damian, who patrolled way out of his way as Nightwing and Robin.

Lucky Cass for getting back to Hong Kong when she did.

A week went by, and Steph didn't see any sign of Jason.

Steph was beginning to feel a little silly for hoping he'd show up again, even if she was a little peeved he'd left without a word or a sign that he's even had somewhere to go. Aside from the glittery cards, he hadn't given her any reason to believe she'd ever see him again, and the more she thought about the more it seemed like they were just a last joke he'd left behind like the asshole he was.

Then again, if he had any clue how much ferocity Bruce was putting his search – and she didn't doubt that he did – she could see how he would want to keep as low a profile as possible. It wasn't like he could just show up at her college for a chat.

More and more criminals were turning up in the hospital, whether they had any connection to the Red Hood or not.

Tim was giving Bruce looks every time they were working together, and it was making everyone else very nervous, maybe even more than if Tim were giving _'them'_ that piercing detective stare.

She carried the cards with her wherever she went, just in case.

Two weeks after Jason disappeared, the killings started.

Or rather, they actually began to notice the deaths when they turned their investigations from the streets and back to Arkham.

The remaining guards who'd worked more closely with the Doctor, a therapist, four Arkham inmates. All evidence pointing so overwhelmingly to each one being accidents or suicides that the only reason they were investigated as anything else was little snatches of months old camera footage showing them interacting with the Red Hood.

Soon after, that camera footage itself disappeared, leaving them with only the backups in the cave. Files pertaining to the victims, prescription write ups, therapist notes, medical records. Everything was just gone, as if none of those people had ever been in the asylum to begin with.

As if John Doe had never existed at all.

Steph traced her hands over the glittery ridges, thinking of torn palms and shaking fingers.

Another handful of high tier gangsters turned up dead and she found herself actually volunteering at Leslie's clinic just so the old woman could keep up with the chaotic fallout. There was a man with six stab wounds in the room that had been Jason's.

Even the limited view her position answering calls and filling prescriptions for less serious cases was enough to make her stomach turn. If it really was someone making a play for power, they were sure going all out.

Tim took over Bruce's old investigation into possible outside influences. Barbara was calling up contacts everyday in the hopes of finding someone who knew something. Steph rather regretted sending the one informant Jason had given her to prison.

Something new was happening, and whatever it was, it was happening deep in Gotham's underworld. Steph was beginning to regret sending that informant of Jason's to prison.

It had been three weeks, and Jeremiah Arkham, having woken up a few days earlier, had decided to add to the mess by opening his bag fat scrawny mouth and demanding a chance to speak with Batman. He wouldn't say why, but Gordon had passed the message on anyway.

Dick, being the more personal Batman, and the one Arkham had dealt with most got into the suit while Bruce continued on his rampage. It wasn't hard to convince Dick to let Steph tag along for the visit, interrogation, whatever they were calling it.

She was pretty sure the Doctor had something to say about the night he'd gotten the stuffing beaten out of him that would nicely contrast with her account of the event. It was better to be there and know exactly what he said that wait and agonize over it. She knew for a fact the only way she'd get the full account was to be there herself.

They went to the hospital way past visiting hours, and walking through the near deserted halls, even with Dick for company was like a weird reflection of the first time she'd pitched up at Arkham with a paper bag of chili-dogs.

She was about as nervous as she'd been that time too.

Dick didn't offer her a smile the way he would have if he'd been Nightwing, or dressed in anything but the batsuit really, but he tilted his head a little and gave her an encouraging look before they were within sight of anyone.

Yeah, see how long that would last when he knew that she'd helped the person they thought was stirring up all the trouble brewing in the city.

The door was in sight when a loud shriek pierced the hushed hospital air. Dick rushed forward faster than Steph had ever moved in her life, but still didn't manage to catch the screaming nurse who fled the room.

Steph reached the door seconds later, just catching a glimpse of Arkham convulsing so violently only the cuff binding one of his arms to the bed kept him from falling to the ground. Dick ordered Steph after the nurse while he chased a shadow falling from the window and a gaggle of doctors filed into the room.

The nurse was easy to track down, her screaming, and rambling on some foreign language loud enough that Steph was sure it was heard all throughout the hospital. It helped that anyone else moving about through the halls made way for Batgirl without having to be told, always nice when people cooperated, huh?

Following the wailing led Steph into a vacant room quite a ways from where she'd started. A few nurses and a Doctor or two parted from where they'd gathered at the door to let Steph through.

The nurse was crying on one of the beds, still shouting out things that Steph couldn't understand while fat tears rolled down her plump cheeks. Clenched in her fist was an I.V line that she flailed around dangerously when Steph began her approach.

"Okay, it's okay." Steph kept her voice just high enough to be heard by the distraught woman. The nurse's gaze flickered between Steph and the people gathered at the door. Steph hummed softly as she shooed everyone else away from the door and shut it gently. "You're okay, did you get hurt."

The nurse shook her head, but her reply was muffled by her sobs.

' _Got away_.' Dick swore softly over the comm. ' _Batgirl, see if the nurse knows anything_.'

Like she wasn't trying that already.

"Just try and relax then, kay?" Steph approached the woman slowly, holding up her hands so they were visible and there was as little chance as possible of her nurse thinking she was going to do something. "Batman'll get the guy." She sat down on the unoccupied stretcher. "Think you can tell me what happened real quick?"

"Don't know where he came from." The nurse sniffed loudly. "I can't lose my job. I…" she devolved into another bout of sobbing. "It wasn't my fault."

"Course it wasn't, we saw the guy, you couldn't have done anything, huh?" Steph rested a hand on the woman's back. "You get a good look at him?"

She shook her head, wiping at her tears with her sleeve. " Was wearing a mask." She took a deep breath. "Covered his whole face, it was dark."

"A mask, kay. Like a ninja mask or a burglar mask?"

"I didn't see." The woman reiterated firmly, looking at Steph with eyes that were steely despite the tears. "Think he was wearing something red, a jacket or something."

"Red jacket." Steph repeated for the sake of those on the other side of the comm. " Y'see what he did to Doctor Arkham?"

She mimed pushing down the plunger of a syringe. "In the I.V. Wasn't me, he just…"

"Wasn't you, I know." Steph got a look at badge pinned to the woman's chest. "Marie, you're not a bodyguard. You couldn't do anything."

' _Dead_.' Barbara said. ' _Doctor just clocked a T.O.D_."

' _I want a blood sample, and both of you get home for the night_.' Bruce spoke up for the first time that night. ' _I don't want you on the streets tonight._ '

Steph stifled a sigh and wrapped her arms around the crying nurse in a loose hug, not really processing the order.

Dead. Just like that.

If she hadn't been so nervous about coming to meet them, Dick wouldn't have stopped to reassure her, and those few seconds would have been enough to save the Doctor.

' _He'll be dead before morning, and I need the data._ '

The memory of the Doctors last words sent a shiver down her spine. He needed the data, he said. Like the body of the boy he'd poisoned was just a science project for him to cut open and examine, find out where he'd gone wrong with that freaking cocktail of illegal drugs.

The nurse returned the hug, scratchy hospital scrubs rubbing against Steph's cheek. Her mother wore those same scrubs, it even smelled similar and Steph suddenly felt homesick.

When she finally left the hospital her feet steered her not to her own shabby student apartment, but towards the home of Crystal Brown.

Despite the what-ifs curling around in her mind, she found she couldn't dredge up the guilt she knew she should have felt at the Doctors death. She stopped short of reaching her destination, one foot still raised above the damp asphalt.

Screw it, she was too wired up to go home, and she didn't feel like explaining to her mother why she was wandering around in the middle of the night, Batgirl costume or no. She was going on patrol whether there ninjas running around or not. Wasn't like it was the first time, she could deal with it.

.

.

.

"Don't worry girlie, we won't hurt you, just want a chance to talk to the Hood."

Yeah, the twirling knife and multiple guns trained on her really gave off the vibe of non-hurtyness. There was a bang and she leaped out of the bullets path, spring-boarding over a crook's shoulder and kicking the aggressor in the face.

The ninja – that might not have been the exact description, but she was going with it anyway because Gotham had been ninja central for months – turned out to be the least of her worries.

It was the first time she'd gone on patrol without another bat within three blocks of her in nearly a month, and it turned out that once you went beyond the grunts there were actually some criminals with brains. Those criminals had actually picked up on her alone-ness and decided it was the perfect time to jump her.

Too bad for her it really was the perfect time. Barbara had noticed the current Batgirl continuing patrol as normal and ordered her back home, refusing to let up right until Steph had deactivated her comm and switched up her route.

Her hands were too busy deflecting multiple pointy objects to reactivate either the comm or the trackers and she was starting to get a real idea of just how much trouble she was really in for being thought of as the Red Hoods sister by those afore mentioned slightly smarter criminals.

They all though he was coming back, and that the comeback would be quick and as brutal as his initial take over.

They were all scared and wanted something to bargain with when he came for the heads of all the people who'd broken his rules.

There were a lot of former _'employees'_ who'd broken those rules, and they'd all chosen that specific night to gang up on her, the assholes. Every time she dropped one another two popped up to try taking her down.

She knew Barbara had sent someone to look for her, so it was just a matter of holding out until her metaphorical cavalry arrived.

A metal beam wielded by a bear of a man was about two inches off from wacking her upside her head. She ducked and flung herself onto a fire-escape, seeking safety in the higher ground, but was peppered by gun fire before her feet even touched the grating, and she was thrown deeper into the dirty alley.

Even through all the body armor layered under her suit it felt like she'd been hit by a truck, the air tearing out of her lungs in a long gasp that she couldn't manage to pull in. Three of her attackers tried to get nearer and found out what a bad idea that was when they were met by the flurry of electric batarangs she tossed haphazardly at the crowd.

Screams and grunts erupted from them all and Steph found her voice to let out a low chuckle as she rolled over and tried to get to her feet. Half a minute and ascension to her knees later she realized that the screams were continuing past the activity and range of her weapons.

A pair of shapes dressed very differently from the average Gotham gangster was moving between the thugs, dropping them like flies. The distance from which a couple of those screams originated told her that most of her attackers had attempted to flee.

Ninjas, Steph sighed as they noticed her notice them and gave up on their pray to stalk towards her.

"Great." She muttered just as a dark pierced her neck.

.

.

.

No silky sheets greeted her cheeks that time, but he shag carpeting felt nice too, and it smelled way better that the one at her apartment. Soapy peppermint, she placed the smell before looking up at the pair of eyes she felt glaring a little hole in the back of her neck – oh wait it was the dart that had made the hole.

"I was of the belief we'd come to an agreement." Talia's rich voice came from somewhere above the girl.

"Can't you just, I don't know make a phone call, or send an email, normal people stuff?" Steph groaned, rolling over and instantly regretting the action as soon as the rooms bright lights pierced her eyelids.

"Your familiarity with the boy doesn't give you the leeway to speak to me as an equal, now get up off the floor before your blood dirties it more."

She would have made a comment about Talia being the one who'd had her dumped on the precious carpet but value for her continued existence had her mouth glued shut.

Psh, familiarity with the boy… like she thought being associated with that asshole would make ' _anyone_ ' like her more. "Of course not." She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Why would you even think I'd think that?"

It was a different room from the one she'd been taken last time, but with décor just as extravagant. Her kidnapper was seated at a fancy desk, reading through some pages of Arabic writing. Steph cast a glance at the comfortable looking cream-colored sofas and regretfully took the harder chair across from Talia with a huff.

Talia looked almost curious for a second before she slipped back into her conversing-with-the-peasant frown and shuffled her papers. Steph made a show of studying the soft pink flowers of the desk while she wondered just why the hell the woman was so interested in Jason.

"So uh, yeah, the deal." Steph drew her hand away from the petals and looked nervously at Talia. "I totally gonna ask you for help finding Jason, but then he got away on his own, and now nobody knows where he is, but I bet that's just cause he'd busy plotting his vengeance or whatever and…"

Talia slid a tablet across the desk and Steph's words caught in her throat when she saw the grainy footage of herself dragging Jason through a shady alley.

"Where is he now?" Talia's tone was smooth and even as though she was talking about a paperclip she thought her assistant had misplaces. Granted, judging by the lavishness of her rooms, the paper clip would likely be diamond encrusted gold.

Steph still felt like a wrong answer would get her sent to the morgue.

"I took him to a Doctor, but he left like three weeks ago and I really have no idea where he went."

Talia's eyes narrowed and a finger curled over her lips as she leaned a microscopic inch forward.

After sitting under the scrutiny had become bad enough that Steph broke out in a sweat Talia relented and rested her hands back on the desk.

"Impossible. What did he say before leaving?"

"I was sleeping." Steph flinched a little at the sudden intensity in the woman's frown. "I didn't go home after patrol so I fell asleep on the chair next to his bed, but then he tucked me into the bed before he left and cleaned the room and made these little IOU cards out of glitter and cardboard and he was gone and I, yeah… I uh, don't think he'd gonna come back. Bat's is looking for him too y'know."

She felt the pouch in her utility belt where she'd stashed the cards.

The spiel seemed to pacify Talia back to her general malcontented state, and she snorted out something that could have been amusement or extreme irritation.

"So uh, can I go now?" Steph asked hopefully.

"Not quite." Talia's lips curled downward. "You find yourself indebted to the League of Shadows, and the debt must be settled."

"What?!" Steph pushed back her seat, trying not to be too obvious about eyeing the door. "Hey, backup was on the wa…"

"When the boy does contact you, you will deliver a message." Talia waved away Steph's complaints like a fly buzzing too near her head. "Should you refused you'll find yourself delivering a heavy package to the bottom of this city's harbor."

Steph swallowed and watched quietly while Talia signed the bottom of the pages she'd been working on in flowing Arabic script and sealed them in a plain brown envelope. At least it looked plain, no wires or anything that could have made it dangerous.

Two of her ninjas came in through the door and stood and at a nod from Talia, the blindfold made another appearance.

.

.

.

The next day didn't start off remotely pleasant.

Headaches that make getting your head smashed in feel like a tap with a pillow will do that to a girl. She rolled out of bed and made sure the envelope was safely tucked in one of her thicker text books before stumbling over to her bathroom and drinking and adding 'drink two gallons of water out the tap' to her daily routine.

The smell alerted her before the sight that her fridge had defrosted all over her tiny kitchen floor again. She shivered in disgust when the water soaked through her socks, but carried ion anyway to check if there was anything salvageable in the defunct appliance.

There wasn't. Her milk has gone sour, and melted ice had soaked through all the leftover she'd had stashed away, leaving everything that had once been edible only so much mush.

Because Talia had to be a drama queen and kidnap people instead of just having actual conversations. She hadn't even given Steph a snack like she had the last time, so the girl was too hungry to forego breakfast.

She grabbed the box of cereal that she'd forgotten to put away the previous night and grabbed a handful to chew on as she made her way back to her room. It was a little stale, but took away the pangs in her stomach so she wasn't going to complain about that at least. She's get something better for lunch when she had the time.

Speaking of time, she checked her clock and almost choked on her breakfast when the bright numbers informed her that she'd slept way in.

"Damnit." She growled and tossed the box at her bed. She threw her shoes on over her wet socks and barely remembered to grab her bag before running out the door.

She swallowed some painkillers on her way to the college and while they did wonders driving away the headache, they also made her drowsy enough that she fell asleep in class. Falling asleep wouldn't have been so bad, it being something she did often enough with her nightlife, but she'd fallen asleep in the class of the one teacher who didn't hate her guts and had to sit through a lecture she only half had the energy to listen to.

Lunchtime could not come soon enough, then she realized she'd left any means of paying for lunch at home that morning and was too tired to jog on back to her apartment to pick it up.

"Hey, I saw you fell asleep in class today, you can come over to my dorm to borrow my notes later if you like." Her nap on one of the stone benches outside was cut short.

Steph used a bit more of her limited energy to turn her head towards the guy, Mike something, who'd tried hitting on her in chem ever since she'd shown up in that class. From what she'd seen his noted were illegible enough that she was sure even he couldn't read them.

"Sorry, I already got notes from someone else." Her polite smile was chased away by the yawn that followed on its heels.

"Yeah, well maybe you could come over anyway. We're having this party starts at around eight, mostly on campus students, but I could make an exception for you." He slid into the bench next to her, resting his hand heavily on his splayed palm.

"I have a lot of catch up work to do, fell asleep in class and all, y'know." She discreetly inched away from him. "So, maybe another time huh?"

"Come on, what's the point of college if you don't have a little fun now and then." He chuckled.

She lifted her head from the stone table to make a reply, but someone else across the courtyard caught her attention instead.

He stood taller than any of the students making their way into the building, his hands tucked into a black leather jacket while he tilted his head around like he was looking for something. The orangey hair had been cut away, leaving him with short inky curls that stuck up in a messy nest.

She got to her feet and moved towards him, slowly at first incase he was just some guy and she freaked him out by running forward. He turned and she got a look at his face, no longer sallow and pale, a lock of white hair flopping over his forehead as his teal eyes met hers.

"Hey wait." Mike noticed she'd moved and hurried to catch up. "I still wanted to…" He didn't notice that Jason's long strides were carrying him towards them until the taller boy was right on top of them.

"Hey." Jason's deep voice grabbed Mike's attention almost immediately and plastered a frown on his face.

"Who're you?" The college student asked, mimicking Jason's posture.

"Oh this is my…" Steph looked up at Jason, who sighed and shook his head.

"Jason." He held out his hand, while squaring his shoulders and standing a little taller, he barely gave Mike a chance to answer as he shook his hand. Jason nodded disinterestedly before cocking his head towards the building. "Yeah, scram."

The college student opened his mouth to say something, but took another look at Jason's frown and decided against it. He jogged away, while massaging the hand Jason had shook.

"So scary." Steph whispered a grin on her face as spun to look up at him. "I can't believe you skipped out on me like…"

His body was tense as his intense gaze scanned the crowded courtyard and she was instantly on guard. "There somewhere else we can talk?"


	18. Skittles

Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

Anyone who'd worked with Batman had heard that spiel about a hundred times. It was what made them easy to control, what made it possible to drive out most of the established mob bosses, along with their crime cartels within a few years.

Of course, there had been a time when anyone would have run away screaming from any grown man running around in a Halloween costume, throwing pointy things at people.

Criminals were still superstitious and cowardly, only they'd grown numb to the fear costumed heroes had once struck so well. Hell, half of them worked for people with names like Penguin and Two-Face (why he was called that when he actually had two half-faces was a point of contention for Jason that he'd carried from his Robin days and still refused to let go of even if he never mentioned it out loud).

They were still afraid of Batman, just not enough to stay in their holes and leave other people alone.

Smart Gothmites knew to stay out of alleys and all the other darker corners of the city. Those that had no choice, who were born in those places, were bred tough and even more suspicious than their fellow city dwellers.

Before they could even walk kids from those seedy parts of the city knew the ins and outs. Nothing was free, stay away from anyone affiliated with the gangs as much as possible, never follow anyone into an alley alone… the list went on.

Jason knew those things because he was one of those kids.

That was why he was fucking stumped when he realized Blondie had followed him down an alley that was barely visible from the street, not even blinking as she entered the hole in the wall dive bar.

She was a Gotham kid too, and a bat on top of that, her fight or flight instincts should have been screaming at her.

"Oh, so scary. Is this where all the supervillains hang out?" Coming in from the rare sunny Gotham day, she had to squint to see properly in the dim interior. "Not as weird as Talia's hotel rooms though, unless you're gonna threaten to drown me in Gotham bay too."

"Talia threatened to what?" He guided her to the furthest back of the four booths, right next to one of the tinted windows while he waved four fingers at the guy behind the counter.

"Yeah, the letter, hold on." She dropped her school bag on the table and began rifling through it. "But it was right after she saved me from being rescued by Big and Little D, so I think she was joking or, whatever."

The hell was Talia even still in Gotham for? Jason accepted the large brown envelope, but set it aside. It could have been some unimportant drivel to show she was still around and wanted him to get in contact with her, or she was desperate enough to entrust something important to Batgirl.

It could wait until either he was somewhere more private, or reading it in public was a bad idea.

He was self aware enough to know that he was likely just being petty because Talia had gone behind his back to mess in his business again, but he wasn't honest enough that he'd ever admit it.

Threatening people who had nothing to do with it was going just a little too far for his liking, and she didn't make threats lightly.

"I thought places like these only opened after dark." She chirped, eyes flittering across the room staling for a second on the chalkboard menu hanging above the bar then moving back to the few other patrons. One of them winked at her and she grinned, waving four fingers at him. "Is this some kind of secret super villain salute?"

"No." He glared at the man, who hastily turned back to conversing with his friends. "It was me ordering the number four."

"Oh." Her cheeks flushed a light pink and Jason covered most of his nose and mouth to suppress his chuckle.

They were quiet up until the cook came from the back with two orders of wings and sodas balanced on a large tray. The tall woman dumped the food on their table with just a nod in Jason's direction before disappearing again.

"I don't know if bar food is to your taste, but I'd rather not haul your starving ass back to you apartment when you pass out from…"

"Aw, you'd carry me to safety if I swoooooned?" She drew out the last word as she clasped her hands to her chest and leaned far to the side.

Figured she'd focus on that instead of the implication that a dangerous criminal knew where she lived.

"Hell am I even doing here?" He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It's all low key, hidden, tinted windows and you're paranoid." She said around a mouth full of chicken, gulping down a large sip of soda to wash it down.

Jason held up two fingers at the sides of his head, keeping his expression blank when she cracked up and spent the next few seconds trying not to choke between bouts of laughter. "Don't know why I bothered. Booster Gold woulda been more subtle."

"Yeah, B's really been goin at it lately, huh. Like he thinks if he punches the city hard enough it'll cough you out." She shook of most of the tension that had crept into her shoulders. "Everyone else is mostly working on this league of shadows slash gang thing that's been going on. Only reason I'm not on patrol alone most nights is cause they're worried about your little fan club popping up to say hi all the time."

"Told you it'd make you a target."

"Yeah, but I also got a scary big bro to be all like…" She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb and spoke in a guttural growl, "… scram. And chase away all the guys that get all…" She brought one manicured finger to her mouth and stopped what probably would have been a long rant short.

"Fuck, are you choking again?" He leaned over the table to wave a hand in front of her eyes.

"Hey, does my awesome big bro know anything about what's going on with the gangs right now?"

"I know people are OD'ing left an right on some new drug that hit the streets coupla weeks ago, every drug lord an their cousin want in on it, but the guy controlling supply is aint sharing. Got to six runners I know of."Kids two of them, another with sick parents who now had no support. "Not gonna lie, things are getting ugly real soon, maybe not a full on gang war, but nothing good either."

"Damnit." She groaned, running her hand though her hair, the golden locks catching the dim lighting. "Are you sure, I never heard about any new drugs."

"Got a real short half life, so only way to get a sample is to let them hit ya up, and I don't think any of you are dedicated enough for that. Anyone gets near enough and the dealers are torching their own supplies." Yeah, the new boss was real paranoid about losing the monopoly on his product.

"Bet you know another way to get it." She leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table and cradling her head in her hands.

"I might." He smirked, sliding his untouched serving of wings towards her. "Been outta the loop for a while, so it'd be tricky."

"Riiight." She made a show of looking around suspiciously, going so far as to check under the table before she slid one of the glittery IOU's he'd made back at the clinic over to him. "Genie, for my first wish, I'd like some of those new drugs please."

"Don't say it like that." He winced, his face scrunching up in distaste, he really wasn't in any shape to be tracking down a drug cartel and raiding their supplies. She held his gaze though and he let up with a sigh, accepting the card with a disbelieving shake of his head, glad they were in a place where overtly asking for drugs wasn't too out of the ordinary. "Your wish is my command Blondie. Meet me back in two nights, before your patrol."

He finished off his soda and stalked off to drop a few bills with the cashier while she chattered with the man about packing up the left over wings to go.

There were worse things she could have asked him for, he thought, clutching the brown envelope tightly.

.

.

.

The sun didn't often shine in Gotham, and when it did, it didn't shine all that brightly. It had seemed bright in that room at the clinic, but after Arkham, any scrap of natural light would have.

Jason had never minded the darkness before, but hunched in an oversized rain coat – and finding anything that was oversized for him was a feat in itself – watching the light drizzle of rain falling from the overcast sky, he was craving some actual, blindingly bright sunshine.

With his luck, it was probably some kind of vitamin D deficiency and would bite him in the ass around the same time that stroke did.

The park was still nice either way, grass, some benches, of which Jason seated on. Under some trees were signs that kids came around to play on the rusty equipment on the rare occasion the weather allowed. Fuck, a lot of kids in Gotham would have been out regardless most days, Jason knew he'd danced in many a storm when he'd been a kid.

There were even a few bright flowers, wilted but standing boldly against the concrete jungle they were born into. The flower that blooms in adversity, huh?

A man came by in a shambling gait, splashing through a grimy puddle that must have soaked through fancy leather shoes that didn't sync at all with the rest of his ratty outfit.

Unfortunately weeds grew very well in adversity too.

Jason stomped down on a cluster of blackjacks as he followed; paying no mind to the barbed seeds that clung to his pants and sneakers.

' _Frenzy_ ', was what the new drug was going by on the streets. How so many people had gotten hooked if he first place when it had a name like that was a mystery Jason had no interest in solving, but in an ironic turn that was in no way pleasant, the results made it almost insultingly easy to track.

A while ago, he could have racked it all the way to the source and blown the place sky high without breaking a sweat. His current… er situation made more subtle means necessary, hence his following of a guy who he knew would only be in the East Quarter for one reason.

Turns out he was right on the money when the guy ducked into a shabby, graffiti heavy building that might once have been a snack bar of some sort. Jason leaned casually against a side near a low window where he could peek in at the two waiting men.

"Don't like this man." One of the dealers whined. "You know what he does when kids are involved, and I heard…"

"You wanna duck out, go ahead, but you won't catch me crossing the boss fer a ghost." The taller of the two cut in as needles dulled from use made their appearance.

Jason's breath hitched a little at the sight, but he pushed it into the same corner as all the other shadows and made himself pay attention. How ridiculous would it be if he exposed himself and it wasn't even the right drug, huh?

The guy with the nice shoes was handed over a wad of bills with his shaking fingers, glancing every which-way at shadows of his own. Just another sign of the withdrawal that had given him away in the first place. That along with the nausea, which, yeah, that had not been pleasant to watch.

Few words were exchanged and the whiny thug plunged the needle into their customer's neck. The guy's eyes widened while the rest of his face sagged in relief, looking around at a whole new world. A blissful smile crept on to his face and he thanked the dealers profusely before sauntering out.

Before he knew it, bile had found its way up Jason's throat and he had to sprint away so the dealers didn't hear him loose the take out lasagna he'd had for lunch.

He pressed his back against a tree and wiped the remains away from his mouth while he took some time to calm his stomach. First time that had happened all day though, so it was still a new record, maybe he should have been following the meal plan Leslie had handed him on his way out.

"Fuck it." He scowled when he looked up and the dealers were all ready leaving. He already looked like hell so he might as well play it up right.

"Hey, wait!" He broke into a run, chasing after them.

They knew they were the ones he was calling out to, maybe because the park was empty, but Jason had long since decided weeds like them knew when they were being singled out by someone interested in their product. Even when the one doing the calling was industrial strength herbicide.

Weird as it was doing it during daytime, at least there were no bats getting in his way.

"Ryan Orwell said I could get some of that new stuff from you guys, said it feels like heaven."

They went from pissed to pleasant in a matter of seconds, one of them even threw an arm around Jason's shoulder while they steered him back towards the abandoned snack bar where they'd either bring out the drug or try to kill him depending on how believable his act was. Either outcome was good in his eyes, so he didn't fight it.

"Ryan Orwell huh?" Tall Thug grinned. "Heard he had a bad reaction."

"Come on man, how old this kid?" Whiny Thug dragged his feet, but followed.

"Older 'n Orwell, and I aint no kid." Jason bit out, it had been forever since someone had called him a kid. Scratch following the meal plan, he was bulking up as fast as possible. "Not my fault Orwell couldn't handle his shit."

"Ya heard the man." Tall Thug shut the door behind them. "You got the green ta pay fer this? Frenzy don't come cheap y'know."

"Yeah I know alright." Jason gave the area a cursory scan for witnesses, ambushes or surveillance equipment. "But I ain't the one payin."

He'd fired off two shots from the gun in his pocket, taking out both of tall thugs arms before he'd even had a chance to blink.

"Fucking hell!" Whiny Thug dropped the needles he'd been prepping and reached for his own gun, but Jason was faster and the dealer's firing hand got it's very own bullet to match the ones in his friend. "You need money kid, you can have it all, no one's gotta get hurt here, right?"

Money. Jason almost laughed, would have maybe if he'd been in a better mood. It always went back to money with those people, didn't it?

"Psh." Jason scoffed. "No one's gotta get hurt." He scooped up Whiny Thug's discarded gun. "Stupidity is a talent for misconception." He turned his gun on Whiny Thug with a sharp edged grin. "Congratulations, you've just won the talent show."

BANG

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.

.

"Hey Tim, is this gonna take long?"

"Uh huh." He was still turning the little blue box around in his hands, running a little tool over it to check for who knew what.

"Do I have to be here until it's finished?" She rubbed at her crusty eyes.

"What if it's fanmail?" He asked with a small smile, not looking up from his examination. "But seriously, I might need you for context. Go talk to Dick or something if you're bored."

"Fine." She sloppily saluted and dropped off the table she'd been perched on to leave Tim's isolated little alcove and reenter the main part of the cave.

She couldn't talk to Barbara because the woman was actually getting some sleep for once, and for all the cool knick knacks laying around, the cave wasn't really that interesting when you'd already spent as much time in it as she had.

She almost turned and went right back to annoying Tim when she noticed what Dick was watching on the huge Batcomputer monitor.

More footage from that blank white room where Jason had spent most of his time in Arkham. The only reason she went closer was because she heard Dick chuckle softly. No matter how much he hated a guy, Dick would never laugh at anyone in real pain.

Jason was arranging the many skittles into a Nightwing symbol, shooting occasional glances at the camera. When he was done, he made a show of studying his work, then looked at the camera again before gathering up the skittles he'd used and dumping them in the toilet. He saluted, one fist placed on his chest, then the fist stretched out, and he flipped the bird at the camera while flushing the toilet with a completely deadpan expression.

Dick chuckled again and scrubbed a hand across eyes that were tinted red, guy really needed to get some sleep.

"You shouldn't laugh at that." Steph said and Dick looked at her over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "Those skittles are stolen property, he cheated them out of me and then he wouldn't even share."

"God, he was a brat." Dick shook his head, a fragile smile playing across his lips while Jason fashioned a Green Lantern ring. "The guards took what was left over when he went to the common room the next day."

"And he doesn't even like skittles." She poured as much disdain into her voice as she could.

"Yeah? I didn't know that, maybe I should have sent him some more." Dick's voice hitched on the last word and his eyes got a little more watery, and uneasy feeling that it wasn't just because he was tired brewed in her chest.

"I can't believe this is the guy you were all so scared of."Steph shook her head as the Jason on screen wrote K and R in colorful candy next to the ring and pointed at it with both index fingers while looking at the camera before he began crushing it. "I get the dig at Nightwing, but what does he have against Green Lantern?"

"He went on a trip through the multiverse with one of them and Trioa."

"I can't decide if that's cool or terrifying."

"Neither could they. Kyle told me he was starting to like Jason, in a bratty kid brother kind of way, then something happened and he just abandoned the mission, took off." Dick's eyes shifted off the screen and back to the case that loomed like a shadow in the cave despite the pale blue display lights attached to it. "Someone who hated him at first almost saw him as a brother, and I…"

"Dick?" Steph put herself between him and the case. "Are you feeling okay?" Dumb question but damnit, she didn't know what else to do.

"I told Damian that Jason could have saved himself if he'd just reached out to someone, anyone, but he did reach out, in New York and when I was with the Outsiders and, and I talked so much about family, but I just wrote him off and I, fuck and I used Bruce's last message against him like that when he was…"

Okay, if she'd been feeling wrong about the whole thing before, that just amplified the wrongness by like a hundred.

"Dick?"She carefully laid a hand on his shoulder, looking around frantically for one of his siblings or Alfred, or Babs, or literally anyone he was close to to show up and calm him down. "You need to stop watching these things…" She stormed towards the controls and typed in the code to shut of the footage so hard she would have broken the keys on a more normal computer.

"If I'd visited him just one time, or watched the surveillance then maybe I would have noticed what was happening… he wouldn't have been…" The most telling sign of Dick's current mental state was that he was even letting her see him like that.

"He proly would have tried to flush ' _you_ ' down the toilet, you know, in itty bitty bits like he always threatened to chop him into. Definitely if you said you wanted to help him. You woulda just given him more things to be mad about when plots his revenge plan that will involve like, burying Gotham in skittles or…"

"He's not going to be plotting his revenge Steph." Dick let out a shaky breath. "And we did enough of pushing the blame onto him the first time."

"Tell that to Bruce, I don't think he's looking for Jason to give him a little pat on the back." Steph said. "He's probably gonna give him a much big pat, in his face, with his fist."

He looked up at her, shock on his bright blue eyes while he scrubbed a hand along the lower part of his face. "Is that what you…" He slowly stood up from his chair and gently pressed her towards it.

"Dick, what's going on." She tried to smile, cheer him up a little maybe.

"Just sit down." He said firmly and she complied, if only so she didn't kick up a fight. "We stopped looking for Jason more than three weeks ago Steph…"

"Bruce…"

"Someone as malnourished as he was, just wouldn't have been able to handle the kind of drugs Arkham was pumping into him down there Steph. He needed a Doctor, and we checked all the ones he could have gotten himself to before his body would have just given out. Do you understand?"

"No." Steph pressed a hand over her mouth and stared at the man in front of her, horrified at the implications of what he was saying.

"Arkham had some people set up to take away the, the remains of the people he… For the past four weeks Bruce has been looking for those people, so, so we can at least give Jay a proper funeral and…"

"Dick." Steph shot up from the chair and wrapped her arms around him, holding tightly as shudders ran through her body, she didn't even try holding back her tears.

"It would have been painless at the end." Dick said, returning her hug. "He didn't suffer at least."

Dick was a good liar, and she might have believed him if she hadn't seen Jason in what would have been his very, very painful death throws. He would have studied the chemical cocktail detailed in those files, would have know how the drug would affect Jason.

She ran her hand in circles along his back and remembered the tightness in Tim's voice when she'd asked if he knew where Jason was.

The whole time she'd been so sure they'd been scouring the city to send Jason to some other hell hole. That they hated him and wanted him gone and would have been relieved to have him gone. They'd been frantically searching, not to punish him further, but because they thought he needed their help.

She couldn't regret keeping him hidden from them in the beginning of his stay at the clinic, when they would have had him transferred somewhere ' _more secure'_ where he'd have felt trapped and unable to recover. She couldn't regret not letting them send him to some other ' _facility_ ' in Central City as soon as he looked well enough to walk.

She did regret that while they were mourning his slow and painful death, she'd been sneaking him candy and laughing along with him at corny musicals.

She thought of Jason's shaking hands and the way he was still jumping at shadows, and she regretted that she still couldn't tell them where there was nothing to mourn, or where he was, because that fucking room was stuck in the back of her mind and the thought of him being locked away again was worse.

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.

.

She still felt terrible the next day when she slouched into the same booth she'd shared with Jason the last time she'd seen him. No sleep on top of feeling like the worse person in the history of the world, and her stomach physically threatened a revolution every time she even thought of filling it.

"The fuck happened now?" There was a heavy thump as Jason dropped into the seat across from her.

"They think you're dead." Her voice was heavily muffled by virtue of having her face pressed into her folded arms, but she was sure he could hear her anyway.

"Good for them." A peek over her arms saw him waving two fingers at cashier guy. "They forget to invite you to the party.

"No, not good for them." She reluctantly propped her arms up and rested her cheeks in her palms. "They're taking it really, really bad Jay, and I don't know what to do."

"They're Bat's, they latch onto everything they can think of to add to their long list of things to brood about, give em a few weeks and they'll be saying how I deserved it for decking Quinzel, or talking smack to Arkham or whatever." He slid an A5 sized black case made of some kind of tough fabric towards her. "Instantly addictive, so don't get curious with this stuff, right?"

"It wasn't your fault Jay." She wrapped her hands around the case and pulled it towards her.

He blinked down at her, his teal eyes wide an unguarded for a few seconds before he closed himself off again. "Sure Blondie, dare you to say that again in a few weeks."

"You didn't kill anyone getting this, right?" She couldn't help but ask.

"Not directly." He had a thoughtful frown on his face when he answered. "Worst I did was shoot some guy's arms 'fore he could pull a gun, but their boss won't be happy they lost his product."

"Why?"

"It's bad business to play against the rule when you owe someone a debt." He said, going quiet while milkshakes and chili cheese-covered fries were dropped in front of them. "You might ask me to streak down Crime Alley yelling about cannibalistic lobsters."

"Lobsters _are_ cannibalistic." Steph said, watching as Jason wrapped a long strand of cheese around a fry. "I had to write a paper on it once."

"Heh, more ya know." Jason shrugged.

"Would you do it?"

"Eat a Lobster?"

"Streak down crime alley if I asked you."

"That'd use up both of your favors," he said, his expression completely blank as he dunked a fry in his milkshake.

"No don't eat that!" Steph cringed when he popped the fry in his mouth. "Gross."

"You're the one trying to get me naked."

"Asshole." She groaned while he chuckled and her face burned hotter than the chili on her fries.

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.

.

The next time she was in the cave there was a shiny red helmet at the foot of the lost Robin's memorial, the plaque marking Jason as a good soldier was gone, replaced by his name written in brightly colored candy.


	19. Homework

"Get the results back?" Jason asked, chewing distractedly on a mouthful of peanuts while he watched the brawl she'd had to maneuver her way around to get to the booth.

"No." She dropped sullenly into her seat, fixing him with the harshest glare she could muster. He seemed impervious for the few seconds it took him to realize she hadn't started up her usual string of chatter, then he still looked impervious, but it was at her and not the chaos at her back.

"What?"

"You could have helped me you know." She most definitely did not pout.

"With your nightlife? I woulda thought you'd be insulted." A bottle flew towards them and his arm shot out, knocking away from them to shatter against the ground some distance away.

"Some people can't afford to get arrested for brawling in seedy bars." She slammed her schoolbooks down on the table. The idea that there was at least one person who didn't think he had to jump to her rescue was nice, but she'd gotten beer spilled on her sneakers damnit,

Jason raised two fingers to the sides of his head with a pointedly blank expression. "Yeah, like fugitives."

"Jay, they think you're dead, you ' _can't_ ' be that paranoid."

"They've thought I was dead before." He wagged the 'bat ear' fingers, and then grabbed another handful of peanuts. "Twice."

"Yeah, hey I wanted to show you something." She didn't need to flick through the pictures on her phone, having saved the one she'd taken earlier the previous night in a separate folder. "If you're looking for a reason to come back to life again and wreak your undead fury, Dick vandalized your memorial."

Jason's disinterest quickly turned to what she might have called mild shock when she showed him the picture of his newly redecorated memorial, teal eyes widening while his mouth parted just a little. "Why?"

"He saw the little show you put on with the skittles you cheated me out of and, I don't know, thought you'd find it funny." She released the phone into his hands so he could get a better look at it.

He muttered something under his breath, and she watched his face settle into something like confusion, but softer. The same something that made it so hard to believe and the Jason Todd described on the batcomputer were one in the same.

"Dick and Bruce had one of those big fights about it that they think no one else notices." She awkwardly tapped her pencil against the tabletop while he continued to sit in silence and she thought that maybe showing him had been a bad idea. "I get you don't like them and whatever, but I guess maybe ' _I_ ' thought you'd think it's a little funny too?"

"Huh, preciate the irony." He gave a jerky shrug and slid her phone back to her side of the table. "Surprised they haven't burned that fucking thing to the ground after all the shit that went down last year."

"I told you they feel…" A pool stick came from her side, and she threw herself up against the tinted window to avoid. Not that there was any need, Jason was on his feet hand wrapped around the stick before it would have hit her anyway.

"Guys, seriously, keep the fight away from the lady so she can get her fucking homework done." He seemed more amused than anything, even as he flung the stick and it's holder the few meters to the bar.

"The ' _lady_ ' chipped ma tooth when I mistook her for Gleeson!" Someone yelled from the bar entrance where the brawl was still in full swing.

"She aint a four foot beatnick ya blind fucktard!" Jason yelled back, leaning over their table.

"Hey, Ima four foot beatnick with a pretty face!" Another higher pitched voice called and Steph peeked over the back of the booth to find the speaker, a short, scrawny man standing on top of the pool table, kicking at some guy who was trying to grab him around his ankles.

"Gonna be half as pretty if ya throw another bottle this way!" Jason jabbed a finger in his direction.

"N'aw, don't be jealous kid, we can't all look like this."

"Thank god for that." Jason snorted, and then turned his irate frown on Steph. "You had to come here on a Saturday night didn't you?"

"You're here, and it's so nice to see you making friends." She pressed a hand against her chest and sniffled loudly. "I never thought this day would come."

Another bottle crashed near there table, startling Steph onto a fit of giggles that almost had her tearing the papers she was writing on.

Jason shut his eyes, and took a breath as if to calm himself, then flipped the bird at the jeering brawlers behind her and shook his head, throwing his other arm across his eyes.

"Can't you bother you're boyfriend at _his_ bar?" He groaned loudly.

"I don't have a boyfriend, and I like your bar, you gotta learn to share Jay."

"Huh." He filled his mouth with the last of the peanuts and stared at her cheeks bulging like a chipmunk. She stifled her laughter, doubting that even less angry Jason would like the comparison. "What're you doing?"

He snagged one of the papers without waiting for an answer. "Goodness fucking gracious, the fuck are you letting em cram into your skull there?"

"Rude!" She huffed, and tried to retrieve the paper, he just leaned back, his longer arms carrying her scribbly paper out of reach while he snatched up a pencil. "Jason."

"This whole fucking paragraph is just a string of conjunctions." He scowled, pencil moving across her page. "And, and, and, but, and…"

"I'm not taking grammar lessons from someone who says _'goodness fucking gracious_.'" She mimicked his voice. "Give it back!"

"Oh my god, please tell me you run this through spell-check before you hand it in." He scratched out a whole paragraph. "And grammar check, and fucking English check."

She almost leaped across the table but, he just caught her head in one of his big hands and held her at bay.

"Jason!"

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.

.

The clacking made by Steph's typing was the by far the loudest sound in the clocktower, it's only competition the soft whirring of the any computers set up in the room and Barbara's comparatively quiet tapping on her own keyboard.

The older woman seemed absorbed as ever in her work, scouring the Arkham databases for Dick, pulling up months old satellite images of far off islands for Tim, and feeding who knew what information to Bruce. She'd been so busy lately that the ever present circles under her eyes had become her most prominent feature.

Steph felt kind of bad for asking for help with her own case – namely getting that freaking drug analyzed – that she was trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible while borrowing one of Bab's laptops to type up her various force-edited school assignments.

"What's got you so worked up today?" Bab's asked, sipping from a mug of coffee darker than Batman's soul.

Apparently she was doing as good a job of that as she'd hoped.

"Nothing." Steph replied, making a conscious effort to ease up on the poor keyboard. "Just school stuff y'know."

"Need some help?"

"What?" Steph blinked a few times. Looking up she expected to see the tired, barely there frown that had become commonplace on her mentors face over the past few weeks. Instead Babs smiled lightly, pressing her glasses a little higher on the bridge of her nose.

"I'm serious. I they can do without me for a while, and I could do with a break from all of this…" She waved her hand at the impressive work station, "… assassin, asylum stuff."

Most other people, Steph would have told to take a nap if they had the time for a break, but none of the bats were most people.

"If you want, but I already got a friend look em over and they're not due till next week." She moved her arm so Babs could have access to the loose pages. "Kinda having a hard time figuring out the order though."

Barbara arched an eye at the chaotic notes written all on top of Steph's original work and filling up every inch of the margins. Jason hadn't so much edited the paper, as he'd tried to rewrite the whole thing. There were even more notes she'd written over his, with much complaining on both ends that had culminated in her telling him to get his own homework.

Steph smiled at both the memory and her mentor's half amused huff.

They worked on the papers for little more than half an hour, Bab's only speaking to ask Steph about the parts that were too messed up for even her to read. Steph didn't have much more luck in decoding those parts herself, but she kind of remembered what she would have written and filled went with that.

Then the computer beeped, Dick's tracker reminding them that he was still in Arkham, still looking for even the slightest sign of what wasn't even there anymore.

"Did you know he stopped Bruce from killing The Joker once?"

Steph hummed, nothing surprising about that, then she glanced up and that was all it took to realize the woman wasn't talking about the little dot blinking on the screen off to the side.

"Jason. Something happened with Catwoman. It was when I was out of the game, so I never got the full story." She kept on typing, her voice maintaining that same clinical tone that Steph trusted so much when on patrol. "I just know he came really close, and Jason was the one who pulled Bruce off him."

"Oh, wow uh." Steph pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, not sure how to respond. Since when had ' _she_ ' been the one they dropped those kinds of bombs on? "Sure you're not mixing him up with someone else?"

"I don't know, maybe we've always been mixing him up with someone else."

Steph's chest felt tight, and she wished more than anything that she had something other than notes Jason had written to occupy her mind with. Words stuck to the back of her throat, even as her hands typed out gibberish and Bab's kept on working as though she hadn't just turned up the dial on Steph's already high octane guilt.

"Do you want him to come back?" Steph swallowed. "I guess Dick does, cause he's still looking and we know there's nothing left."

"That didn't stop you going back."

"But I never wanted him gone." The computer beeped a few times, signaling the completion of the drug's analysis, but neither of them paid it any mind.

"We didn't want him…" Bab's sighed, her fingers stalling above the keys. "It's more complicated than wanting him gone Steph. No one wanted ' _that_ ' for him, but…" She pulled off her glasses and pressed her palms into her eyes. "You were never around him before. It was…"

' _You kiss your mother with that mouth? Cause I can mail it to her in a box_.' ' _You know you want a bouncy house_.'

"We let ourselves blame a sweet boy for his own death, that's on us." Bab's hands went back to typing. "But, the Jason who came back, he was, like a nightmare, we didn't think there was any of that boy left until... God, you're so lucky you didn't see what they did to him in those tapes."

Steph was still kind of pissed they'd all watched those things like that, but bringing it up again wasn't worth the fight, and Steph didn't want to keep with the line of conversation anyway.

She ripped the paper out of the printer and scanned the contents. Lists of letters and numbers representing chemicals her eyes should have glided over uncomprehendingly. Only they were familiar somehow, so so familiar…

"Oh my god!" It almost felt like the paper was physically burning her hands, but she was powerless to drop it.

Bab's read the same thing on her computer screen, her face turning a chalky white as she called Dick up.

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.

.

Rain again, another of the violent storms that were so common in Gotham. He should have been inside, where it was dry and he wasn't putting even more strain on his compromised immune system, but lately only exhaustion and\or the thirty minutes he spent at the Dive most nights really kept him inside for any length of time.

Now that he knew the Bats weren't actively searching for him, he could afford to be a little lax when going about his day to day business.

Truth was he'd actually missed the rain, not in the way he'd missed the sunshine, but scent of water hitting the asphalt, the sensation of a chill wind seeping through his clothes and across his face, the sound of a thousand pattering raindrops and the violence of the thunder and lightning that cracked above his head.

He pulled the padded coat closer around him anyway, lifting his scarf to cover the lower part of his face a little more securely. Like it or not, a guy walking about grinning in a thunderstorm would turn at least a few heads and he didn't want any attention brought on him just yet.

There'd be enough of that when he finished his little errand.

A year ago, after his ill-fated trip through the multiverse he'd made the hasty decision to leave the world of shadows and secrecy behind, thinking he'd be content to let it all fall away. Then he'd just had to mess with his replacement one last time, and Bruce's message had happened…

Not thoughts he wanted to dwell on, and Talia'd had a point when she'd called him out on the fool hardiness of trying to sever all his ties to his part of that world and attempting to mold himself into another.

Under his coat, he could feel the corners of the envelope poking him through the thinner fabric of his shirt.

The store was in what could be called the middle class of Gotham. Not as high profile as something in the Diamond District or the CBD, but not quite as obvious as setting up in the Narrows or Coventry would have been.

Plain brownish paint, sticker covered windows just grimy enough to conceal what was inside while looking clean enough to make outsiders believe the owners gave a damn about making some money off the average Joe on the street.

There were plenty like it, not just in Gotham but all over the world, and Jason could say he'd visited a fair amount. He knew what to expect even though he'd never been in that particular one.

A derelict looking thrift store 'Old 'n Loved' written in chipped paint on the yellowing sign hanging above the entrance.

Inside it didn't look any different from the places he'd visited with his parents as a child on the few occasions they'd had the money. Bins filled with musty smelling clothes, trays of cheap old jewelry, shoes with blackened souls lined up like prisoners to execution.

A gaudily dressed old woman watched him warily from behind the counter and he smirked, making a show of inspecting the wares. He circled round, bending as though to inspect a pair of boots that smelled like their last owner had had a serious case of athletes foot.

Fuck, he was surprised Ras didn't bottle the stuff and use it as a WMD. He brought his hand up to cover his nose despite the scarf and turned to look at the winter coats. The coldest season was still a few month away, but with a glance at the cluttered alley he grabbed the largest one off the rack anyway.

In slow strides he wandered over to the jewelry display too, and felt a small, fond smile tugging at his lips. Cheap though they were, he remembered a time he would have been thrilled at scratching together enough money to buy one of the ugly baubles.

Plastic stones and soft, fragile tin, nothing special, but he stood there long enough to finally draw the woman's ire.

"Hurry up or get out." She ordered, jolting Jason out of his revelry and drawing his attention back to the envelope. He likely wouldn't need the papers with her, but he fished them out as he stomped over to the counter anyway.

-This and a pickup-

His Arabic should have been rusty after so long without use, but it came as easily as it had since his monthly check ups with Talia had still been a regular thing. He pulled down the scarf and dropped set the neatly scripted paper besides the coat.

Her scowl dropped instantly, replaced by the same welcoming smile a customer could expect at an old mom and pop diner.

She took the read through the letter and handed it back to him with a friendly. "Of course, right over here son."

He followed with a resigned set to his shoulders, if Talia had set him up for another pack of mercenaries he was burning down one of her caches, because he so wasn't in the mood for that kind of bullshit right about then.

The real shop was much more neatly arranged that the front presented to the public. Knives of all kinds lining the walls, some glimmering and others deliberately dulled to make them less noticeable. Weapons of a blunter variety, knuckle busters, staves, he even spotted a pair of escrima sticks.

The baubles displayed on the new counter were polished precious metals and stones that were well beyond what any street kid would ever see outside of mugging someone more fortunate.

She hoisted a duffle bag onto the counter, and slid it towards him. He didn't check the contents, better not to risk pissing her and whatever bodyguards she had lurking about off, but on impulse he did toss a silver hair stick set with an arrangement of bright yellow stones atop the counter as well.

The bag was no heavier than he would have expected it to be, and he threw the coat into the small waiting shadows of the alley where it was quickly snatched up. While he walked he idly inspected the stick, twirling it around so the stones reflected little dots of light against his hands in an almost familiar pattern.

By the time the rain let up he was almost back home and he'd unwound the scarf from around his face to drape loosely across his shoulders.

Only his quick reflexes saved him from being barreled over by someone who was huffing and carrying himself in a very specific way.

Thirty something, scruffy blonde beard, a glimpse of brown eyes when he turned to flip of the guy he'd have knocked to the curb. No recognition flashed across the guy's face, but it was a face Jason remembered instantly.

Scholz. One of the guards that had been stupid enough to steal his candy. Jason would have thought he'd have made some kind of impression on the guy seeing as how he'd nearly made the pervert piss himself for ogling Blondie, but he just brushed past and continued on his way.

Who would have though a losing a couple pounds, shaving properly and changing his hair would have made such a difference, huh?

Jason watched the guy scurry into a dilapidated basement parking lot, and tucked the stick into his duffle bag.

He had promised to get the guy for taking his skittles after all and it wasn't like he had anything else to be doing until he stopped over at the bar.

Making special note of the bulge under Scholz's coat that had attracted his attention in the first place, Jason trailed after the Arkham guard silently, likely former Arkham guard if he was heading where Jason suspected.

With all the hell that was being raised at Arkham since Jason's… release, he wouldn't have been surprised if a lot of personnel had cut their losses and quit while they still could, but joining in on the drug trade had to be hitting a new low for a lot of them.

The stale air carried the metallic rang of blood, decay and a number of things Jason really hoped he wouldn't find himself stepping in. His eyes were good, but in the dark he could easily miss something and he did not want to be scrubbing his boots when he got home.

Sheets had been hung across the pillars supporting the underground structure at regular intervals, turning it into a labyrinth of sectioned off 'rooms' and walkways.

Scholz navigated the place with the ease of one of someone who did so often. When things got too well lit for Jason to follow in the shadows he strapped his duffle bag to his back and took to the rafters.

Really, with all the vigilantes crawling around, you'd expect the criminal element to look up once in a while. Of course he didn't and Jason remained both undetected and with a perfect vantage point from which to watch the scumbag scurrying along.

The small smile lingered on his lips right up until he stepped around another pillar and noticed signs that there had been up until recently quite a few people being kept in the curtained off maze.

People he had very little doubt had not been there by choice. Bloody leather hammered into the ground and stains from the source of smells to-not-be-stepped-in were scattered throughout.

Jason's breathing only picked up for a second before he forced it under control. Not the fucking time for that shit.

The signs that place even existed were being efficiently cleaned up and loaded into waiting trucks by a dozen and a half men, some of which had very familiar faces, none of which he had particularly friendly feelings towards.

Scholz was being given the third degree by someone beyond Jason's line of sight, but the boy held his position, one hand pressed tightly against his mouth.

Within an hour it was like the labyrinth had never existed and the men were all herded into an actual room built towards the edge.

Jason couldn't see what happened inside, but the sudden silence was followed by way more gunshots than would have been needed to deal with that number of men.

Scholz walked out looking a thousand times less haggard than he had going in and climbed into one of the waiting trucks.

Jason let himself breath again after a quarter hour of silence, sagging against one of the pillars high above the filthy floor.

He didn't have the resources to tackle something like that, and no way in hell he'd get them before the whole thing spiraled out of control.

"Shit." He slammed the back of his head against the pillar.


	20. Sweetheart

By the time he'd calmed down enough to set his thoughts in line, he'd decided that he didn't want to dig himself in with the League any deeper than he already was.

An operation that big? Cops either knew or they were too incompetent to do there fucking jobs, because an old indoor parking lot – condemned or no – in a crowded city like Gotham wasn't exactly a convent in the Himalayas. People had to have wondered across it same as him, and not all of those people could have been non-entities.

That meant people had gone missing and reports had been filed, yet the whole thing had been leftq to sit for two months at the least by his reckoning.

No way in hell was he leaving those people to rot while he pulled together his scattered recourses to go after them himself.

Three potential options, but from the start, one of them wasn't even an option.

' _Hey Blondie, got something here you're gonna wanna take a look at.'_

He was expecting bright smiles and inane chatter, a drop of sunlight in a bleak situation, a drop that he'd been almost dreading snuffing out when she saw the carnage in that bloody room.

When she showed up with a grim frown, and dark shine in her eyes, in that Batgirl costume he hadn't seen since…

It took a little weight off his of his shoulders to know he'd only be adding to the shadows instead of making them for once. It wasn't important she'd said before he'd lead her to the room. She'd tried getting him to focus on the piece of paper she'd pressed into his hands instead.

He knew what it looked like, a room full of some of the worst scum Gotham had to offer, and him waiting in the dark playing with a knife.

He unfolded the page while she went inside, mildly curios about what was had gotten those reptiles so complacent they'd mop up someone else's operation and turn their back long enough to get pumped full of so much lead a mortician was going to be identifying them by their teeth.

The list of chemical components on the page was too familiar even in the dim light, against the files of his own clandestine ' _treatment'_ at Arkham there were disturbingly few differences, and those few he could identify himself fairly easily.

He read it again, a point of white-hot rage slipping in through the less welcome things that were beginning to fill up his chest.

There were a dozen stories he could have spun about how things had likely played out, and most of them would have even been true. A guy in Gotham dipping his fingers into the drug trade was nothing new. Killing off the competition, nothing new.

Fucked up as it was, it was nothing new.

An Arkham guard that had played a part in trapping Jason beneath that hellhole dishing out the same drugs that had very nearly killed him? She had every reason to believe he was more than tangentially involved.

Jason Todd wreaking his revenge on revenge on the poor ' _helpless_ ' bastards? Well that wasn't anything new either.

And fuck, those bastards were OD'ing kids on that poison too? If Jason ever got his hands on the reptiles responsible he wouldn't stop at emptying a few clips into them. He'd string em up, dose them until all they could think about were their own screams echoing off those filthy, damp walls. Really give the bats a reason to lock him away and weld the door shut.

"Jay." He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, reading the paper over and over as though it would change its lettering before her boots appeared in his line of sight. "Hey, are you okay."

She rested a hand on his shoulder and flinched back as soon as he turned his eyes towards her, holding her arm to her chest as though he'd burned her.

Who knew, maybe he had.

"Peachy." He shifted his full weight to his feet and rolled his shoulders as he stuffed his hands into his pockets wrapping the fingers of his left around the blade of his knife.

"Aside from," she swallowed, shooting another glance at the now closed door. "Aside from Schools, and the uh, them, do ya know who else was…" She shook her head suddenly and gripped his arm, dragging him towards the exits. "Can we talk about this outside?"

"So I can walk into the rest of your Batty Bunch, no way." He pulled out of her grip and took a few steps away just to be sure she couldn't reach him again.

"They're not…" He wasn't sure what she saw when she looked up at him again, but it somehow made her posture both softer and more tense at the same time. "You think I think you did this?" She gaped at him.

"I think you'd be pretty fucking stupid not to." He shot back.

"And calling it in then waiting around for me to finish was some genius move on your part?" She asked her gloves creaking with the strain her tightly balled fists were putting in them.

No, waiting around had been stupid but chances were Scholz or his boss would send someone to clean up the mess and after the way that freak had looked at her he didn't want to risk her being caught unawares.

"Well come morning I'll be outta you're pretty blonde hair and you don't gotta worry bout any moves I make." He tried to brush past her but she planted herself in his path again.

"You're leaving? For where?"

"Kinda defeats the point if I tell ya, now doesn't it?"

"Damnit Jason, I wouldn't do that!" She looked about two seconds from stomping her foot like a five year old. "You can't just leave me to deal with this alone, you're the only one who had any idea what's going on here, and don't pretend you don't cause I swear…"

"After this," he fluttered that stupid paper in front of her face. "I know shit nothing."

"Then find out." She slapped something against his chest and he knew without even looking what it was.

"Don't…"God he hoped he didn't sound as desperate as he thought he did.

"Find out." She reiterated, trapping his eyes with hers, fierce and determined. "I want you to help me find out what's going on here and you can't leave until you do."

"You don't want my kinda help." He moved a hand to where hers was still pressing the card against his chest. "Why not just call in…"

"Cause they're all too busy thinking they killed you to focus!"

It was his turn to pull back, tiny flakes of golden glitter sparking as they fluttered down from the card he pulled with him. It wasn't his fault they couldn't get over themselves. None of them cared when he'd wanted them to, when he'd practically begged them too, and he didn't owe them anything for doing it when he'd finally stopped.

"I never asked you to keep me your dirty little secret." He turned his head so he wouldn't have to look at the liquid welling up in her blue eyes.

"You didn't have to." She reached out for him, but thought better of it and wrapped her arms around herself instead. "I won't tell them okay, and they won't find you, and you won't leave. I can say a kid wondered in on…" she waved her hand around their current location, "this. You don't have to leave."

He took another look at the card, a mess of gold and blue glitter he'd crafted out of nothing more than boredom while he'd waited for Leslie to leave her office. Such a little thing that had her putting so much faith in him.

"You know when and where." He said. "I'll see what I can dig up."

x

x

x

It should have been the sick sense of dejavu that got to her the most.

The underground parking lot, the scent of iron and rot hanging in the stale air.

The small cornered off room filled with the remains of what should have been people. It was like something out of a nightmare.

All wrapped up neatly in that her attention had been called to both by someone who really shouldn't have been there.

'… _he was like a nightmare_...'

She kind of wished those were the same things that had freaked Jason out too.

Bringing in the former Arkham guard had been the easy part.

After they'd found out that Schools might have been involved in The Red Hood's kidnapping – man did it feel weird pinning a word like that on a person like Jason – not a lot of time passed before Bruce went to 'talk' to the man.

Steph wasn't sure exactly how much talking had actually taken place, but there was enough evidence laying around his place for them to bring his bruised, bloody self in.

Tim was at the crime scene within minutes of Steph calling it in, despite it being around the time he caught the reclusive beast known as sleep. She had been happy to leave the rest of processing the whole messy thing to him while she went home and took a as long a shower as her limited hot water would allow.

Too bad the night had other plans for her.

They had Schools in, and enough evidence to put him away for a very, very long time, even if they couldn't tie either the human trafficking or murders to him. Still he refused to talk, whether from fear to he was just being an asshole Steph couldn't tell – with him both options were equally likely.

He'd strike a deal with Batgirl he'd said, and no one else.

If she'd disliked him when she'd thought he was just being a perv, she actively loathed now that she had an idea of the other things he'd been up to and she doubted anything he said was going to make her think any more kindly of him.

The door to the isolated, sound proofed room slid shut behind her with an echoing clang and she was left alone with a guy she would have liked nothing more than to beat into the ground.

Would have, if not for the ugly purple splotches peeking in from under his prison clothes, around his neck, the deep split on the edge of his lip.

It wasn't enough, but it brought a her mood up a few notches, enough for her to plant a smile on her face as she pulled out her seat.

"Hiya Schools." She said, leaning forward with her head cradled in her hands. "Rough night? I'm guessing yes."

A returning smile crept into his face, the very sight of it tangling up some very uncomfortable knots in her gut.

"Better now I get to see you again. Thought I'd never get a chance to again after your brother was out of the picture. Almost told them to leave him in that cell just so you'd keep coming around."

"How sweet." She self-consciously let her cape fall over her chest, but still his eyes lingered. "Woulda been nice of you to tell me where he was when I came asking, just saying."

"Maybe I would of, if ' _you'd_ ' been a little nicer." Having his eyes turned higher up wasn't any more pleasant than when he's been ogling her. "Might have even warned you against taking that form from Arkham if you hadn't been such a stuck up little bitch."

"Oh, how could I have turned such a ball of charm down." Steph shot a glance at the one way mirror where Damian was watching and really hoped the freak didn't say anything Dick would have to explain to the ten-year-old later.

"If you setting that freak on me for trying to be friendly didn't do it, taking Arkham's little 'consent' form's what convinced him." Creep actually made air quotes.

"That I was worried you'd aggravate his nut allergy?" Steph turned up her palms helplessly. "Look can we…"

"That you really were his sister, or at least knew someone who knew enough about him to fill it in." He cut in, pressing his hands against the table while he leaned forward, his smile morphing into something she was sure would be giving her nightmares when she actually got to sleep.

She resisted the urge to look back at the mirror, pushing down the feeling that he was about to say something horrible. He seemed to be watching her for a reaction and she refused to give him one. Still she couldn't keep her fingers from digging into the reinforced fabric at her thighs.

Oh god, she really wished he wasn't going where she thought he was going with all of that. Just a criminal trying to swing the interrogation in his favor like they all did. She could deal with him same as any other.

"If you knew him, then chances were he knew you, you and all the other caped idiots running around this city at night, messing things up for the rest of us. Do you have any idea the kind of money that sort of information would get us? We were sitting on a literal gold mine and we didn't even know it until you showed up."

' _Doctor Arkham was asking him a lot of dangerous questions and we need to know how many of them Hood answered.'_

' _God, you're so lucky you didn't see what they did to him in those tapes._ '

Bastards. Under the table, her hands were shaking, and she struggled to control her breathing. There hadn't been any attacks on their civilian identities, nothing that even suggested that Jason had told them anything.

"That's real interesting Schools but…"

"It's Scholz!" He interrupted, leaping to his feet, chains rattling loudly as he tried to reach her across the table.

Stephanie didn't so much as flinch, setting her jaw and staring him down throughout the display despite the prickling that threatened at her eyes.

"Sit down ' _Schools_ '" She emphasized the name and he growled, his eyes flashing dangerously, he didn't take a second before obeying. "I've sat across the dinner table with the Red Hood, if you think you can intimidate me you've got another thing coming."

"Big deal." His voice trembled with his rage but he still managed to keep it level. "That dumbass wasn't worth half the fuss. I might even be willing to hand him over if you do me a…" He leered at her again, "…special favor."

She wouldn't hit him, she told herself, grateful beyond belief that she couldn't reach him across the table."I'd rather scratch my eyes out with my toothbrush." She tried to sound chipper when she said it, but wasn't sure that was how it came across.

Her comm beeped softly in her ear.

"It's a small thing to ask to get your precious big brother back isn't it? After everything your stupidity put him through." He laughed, an ugly, cruel sound that made her feel like something dark and slimy was seeping into her bones.

"Actually, I take it back, he was one-hundred percent worth the fuss." He threw his head back, folding his hands behind it. "Big Bag Red Hood." He snorted. "Wasn't so bad by the time we were done with him I'll tell you that. Not so big either. Little needle, some masks and we had him screaming like a little bitch. Don't think I ever had that much fun in my…"

The table wasn't enough if a barrier to keep her fist from breaking his nose three places before the door had even opened.

She stormed past, unwilling to look at the people waiting for her on the other side. She knew she knew if she did she'd give something away, so she just didn't.

x

x

x

Two o'clock on a Monday morning. A guy passed out drunk at one of the booths, a couple making out on the pool table.

It was about as empty as the dive got.

She sat at the bar, shot glass filled with a rich dark liquid held loosely in one hand.

Jason sighed and pulled a hand through his hair, holding back a twitch when he caught sight of the white streaked trough the front. He'd have to dye that again if he was going to be throwing himself into a sensitive investigation.

"Fire, blackmail, poison." He accepted the drink the bartender places in front of him, cradling the little glass in his hands, he looked at the bitter liquid instead of her curios expression. "What you want me to do with the guy who pissed you off this time? I could swoop down with a helicopter and dump him in the middle of the Pacific, make it look like an accident."

"How would you make _that_ look like an accident?"She cocked her head to the side, bringing the glass to her lips.

"I'll figure it out." He put his hand over her glass and pressing until it was set next to his next to his.

She chuckled softly and rubbed a hand over her crusty eyes. "How'd ya even know I was here?"

"My evil supervillian friends told me." He's spinning the glass on the countertop, wants to ask just how much she's had when she starts talking again.

"'M so sorry Jay, should have listened when you said to leave you alone." She buried her face in her hands, a feint tremble going through her shoulders. "I messed everything up and I'm too weak and stupid and selfish to fix it."

"I didn't get up at asscrack o'clock to listen to this bullshit."

"Huh?" She blinked up at him.

"Fix it." He scoffed. "You sound like a five year old. You can't fix everything and half of what you can you're better off staying out of. A couple doctors wanted a new test subject whose brains weren't scrambled and wouldn't be missed. They'd a taken me eventually and knowing some stuff they wanted was just icing on the cake. S'not the first time it's happened, won't be the last and doesn't come close to being the worst." He knocked back the shot, wincing as it burned it's way down his throat. "If it's anyone's fault it's mine for getting caught and not breaking out when I had the chance, so just…"

Vanilla undercuts the stronger alcoholic odor clinging to her as she wraps her arms around him, almost pulling him off the barstool as presses his head against her shoulder.

"S'not your fault Jay." She squeezed him a little tighter, and he was too shocked by the action to pull out right away.

"You're drunk." He said eventually, disentangling from her embrace to reinstate his balance on the flimsy piece of furniture.

"Didn't drink that much." A light smile crossed her face, then she got that look in her eye that told him she was going to suggest something he was already too sleep deprived for. "Y'know, we never celebrated you getting out. We should celebrate."

"No thank you. The last time you wanted to celebrate I almost choked to death."

"The cake wasn't that bad." She swiped at him playfully, but he ducked out of the way easily enough.

"It looked like it was made out of fear gas and Clayface's ass."

"And you were a sweetheart for trying it anyway."

Jason hurriedly angled away and ordered another shot he did not intend to actually drink. For some reason that prompted a real laugh from her, and she leaned over in her seat, trying to draw his face towards her.

"Come on, I got invited to this cool party. It'll be fun."

"Then go on your own, I'm not getting within a four blocks of a drunken teenage party."

"So what, you wanna go home and read? God you're like an old man. So boring."

Jason very carefully didn't look at her, keeping his gaze on the brown liquid in front of him. He deserved it he supposed, for not leaving her to mope in piece.

"Fuck it." He knocked back the shot and wrapped his hand around her forearm, pulling her up off the stool. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" She asked, only slightly off balance from the alcohol she'd consumed.

"Not a frat party."

"Jason?"

"Boring." He scoffed. "I'll show you boring."

x

x

x

Gotham was never quiet, not unless you were wondering around Bristol or the very outskirts of the nicer suburbs, and even there it was very, very rare to actually hear crickets in that rare quiet.

That night however, as she stood worrying her lip, the uplifting buzz of the brandy having melted away in the freezing air, she cursed the chirping of the little bugs that she was sure had just shown themselves to laugh at her predicament.

"When you said we were going to do something fun, I was thinking more along the lines of…" She caught the crowbar that was tossed her way, "No actually, this should have been exactly what I expected."

Jason unwrapped the chains from the metal doors, slowly and carefully so he didn't make a noise.

"Quiet Blondie, neither of us can afford to be caught here, remember."

He pushed the doors open just enough for them to slip through, and Steph followed, mumbling some choice curses under her breath.

Of course Jason's idea of having fun was stealing a car from the chop shop he'd sold parts to as a kid. ' _They're assholes and it's not stealing if it wasn't there's to begin_ with' didn't even begin to make her feel more at ease about it.

He was so much more fun to tease when he couldn't actually do anything about it.

If she weren't so used to it, having worked personally with the hulking mass that was the Batman himself, she would have been disconcerted at how silently a guy as tall as Jason moved through the open space of the garage.

They crept past boxes of parts, leaving a trail of oily footprints that she was sure he was leading them through for the sole purpose of ruining her shoes. There were some bright floodlights set up in one corner, where rows of cars that were expensive enough to be worth the risk of keeping them whole.

There were other cars that they just hadn't started with yet, but no, those weren't good enough for their purposes, wouldn't piss off they guys running the shop enough. They took out the lights first, waited a few seconds listening for any signs they'd been caught out.

Steph almost wished they would be before they'd actually do anything. Jason was sure no one would come after them past a certain point, the shop wasn't big enough, didn't have enough influence to get the things they'd need to retaliate.

The sleek blue sports car they slid into after he'd disarmed the alarm was really nice though. He got a pair of lock picks out of his combat boot and set to work starting the car.

A door swung open and voices, along with the new light source trickled into the room.

"There are people here." She whispered.

"I can fucking hear them." He sang.

"You said we wouldn't get caught." She watched anxiously as more people entered the garage, shining flashlights at the cars while others went to check on the lights she and Jason had disabled.

"We won't." His eyes shot to the rearview mirror for a less than a second, Steph followed his eyes anyway and groaned when she caught sight of the neatly stacked white packets in the back seat.

"Jason, they're coming." She sagged down in her seat, trying to be as unnoticeable as possible, hide from gangsters first, yell at the guy who'd gotten her into it later.

"I know."

"They have guns."

"So do we." Of course he did, and being caught in a shootout really wasn't the way she wanted to go out.

"Ooooh, we're gonna die." She peeked out of the window at the nearing beams of light.

"Death'll only slow us down." A bold smirk lit up his face, electricity dancing in his eyes like lightning striking the surface of the ocean. She only got a second to take notice of it though, then the thrummed to life and she was a little distracted by the shouting of the dozen or so men pointing guns at them.

"Hold on!" Jason laughed, revving the engine loudly. The car took off with the screech of something out of hell and Steph screamed along with it. The car tore through the garage, men leaping out of the way, most of them dropping their weapons in shock.

Sometime between them splintering the walls of the garage and speeding careening around the corners of the empty streets, Steph's screams turned to laughter as well.

Some cars went after them, a lot of cars went after them, but that only added to the giddy feeling of adrenaline flooding her system.

In the end, the pretty blue sports car flew over a cliff, a flaming wreck pockmarked with bullet holes. It exploded just before it hit the water, splattering the liquid all the way up to where Steph and Jason were sprawled out on a glassy ledge.

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't know about the smack." He said breathlessly, laughter still lingering in his tone.

"Yes you did." She chuckled, not sure herself what she found funny about the situation. "And _I_ knew something like this would happen."

"You were a sweetheart for coming along anyway." He said in a mockingly high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like her.

She groaned loudly and kicked his thigh with her outstretched leg. "Hate you so much."

The only response she got was a contagious snicker that started up her chuckles anew.


	21. Stargazer

**Okay, so this isn't my best chapter, but I've rewritten it so many times already I think this is as good as it'll get. Next chapter will hopefully be easier.** **x** **x** **x**

Gotham City had bad parts, and then it had parts that might as well have been the openings to hell itself. When Jason was a kid, you knew not to go to that one part of the Bowery. It had been dark, filthy, and above all way too dangerous for anyone to risk treading through unless they were either beyond desperate, or one of the monsters that lurked in the shadows.

Years later, and dangerous enough that the monitors themselves were weary of him, Jason still wasn't sure what he was when he was forced to dig into the bottom of his information barrel.

It was painfully obvious which category the girl belonged to. He didn't want to think about what could have made her that desperate, when even his mother had never…

"Crazy fucking kid! You'll be dead for this, you hear me, we'll fuck you up so bad your bitch of a mother won't know were feeding her what's left until…"

The screaming was getting on his nerves, echoing through the space like a banshee from the depths of the hell Jason must have crawled his way out of.

"Quiet." Jason tightened the chains he'd wrapped around the shrieking reptile, before kicking the man into the nearest corner of the box that was meant to pass as an apartment. He hadn't even done anything to the bastard yet, hadn't had the time. He grinned and leaned in close pulling the man off the ground to get their faces level. "You can scream all you want later, but for now, be mindful of impressionable ears. Right big guy?" He roughly patted the man's cheek, pushing down the revulsion he felt at the touch of clammy skin against his palm.

He hadn't brought a gun along, and he ignored the one laying discarded a few feet away, would have made it too easy, too tempting to just plant a bullet in the fucker's head. He couldn't, not with this case, no matter how much he wanted too, how much better it would make the world. There was a rag on the rusted kitchen sink, it stank of mold and cheap detergent that contrasted sharply with the man's expensive cologne and snazzy clothes. He balled up the disgusting piece of fabric and forced it into the man's mouth.

The bastard was dealing in frenzy, knew supply lines Jason could pick at, would be noticed if he disappeared.

The girl was curled into a corner, knees clutched to her chest as has entire body quaked with the force of the earthquake that hadn't managed to destroy the pit she was unlucky enough to be living in. Far as Jason could tell, she was around college age, her brown hair lank and unkept as was usual for those who gave more thought to where they'd get their next hit.

Outside, and two floors down he finally heard the sirens of the ambulance. Jason scooped the girl into his arms as he tugged off his ski mask, the trembling of her painfully thin body apparent even through the thick leather jacket he'd wrapped around her. At least it hid most of the track marks that ran along her arms.

Another OD, like so many since frenzy had hit the streets, not since straight venom had he dealt with a drug that killed off its buyers like this. Bad business to kill off your client base after all and most dealers knew that.

He carried her to the waiting ambulance, past rows and rows of locked doors, down steps littered with garbage sharp enough to dig into the thick soles of his shoes.

When he didn't offer any information, the paramedics didn't ask. They loaded the girl onto a stretcher. One turned back to ask if Jason was okay, if he needed to see a doctor, offered him a blanket.

Jason brushed her off, and looked down at the weeds poking up through the cracked asphalt. There were no flowers popping up on that street.

She said Jason was a good kid for calling it in. The burner cell in his phone beeped twice and he turned away without responding as he took the device out and skimmed through the text, eye's narrowing at the contents.

He wasn't a kid, and he wasn't good anymore, maybe he never had been, but that didn't matter when there was work he had to be doing.

x

x

x

Arkham.

There was a long list of things Steph would have given to get out of ever having to set foot in the place again.

If not for all the other avenues of investigation turning up nothing, she wouldn't have bothered, but there was only so much the police could scratch up talking to the drugged out crazies they suspected had been part of Jeremiah Arkham's ' _trials_ '.

Even the empty office she and Tim were waiting in brought up memories she didn't want brought to the surface. She felt bad for pulling him away from all the Batman Inc stuff he'd taken over for Bruce, but the multiple bounties still on Batgirls head had effectively banned her from going out solo.

Damian was being kept away from her for reasons she could guess at. Cass was only coming back from Hong Kong in a week for some family thing, not that Steph would have been comfortable investigating a case that hit so close to home for all of them with her lie detector of a best friend. Dick…

After that night in the cave, Dick was the last person Steph could handle being around. Hell she would have chosen working with the obsessive, reclusive Bruce she'd been catching only brief glimpses of lately. Dick noticed she'd been avoiding him, of course he did, but not for the reasons she was content to let him believe.

The door creaked open and the only person who'd offered up any information about he situation at Arkham stepped through.

"Batgirl!" He breathed, seemingly surprised she'd shown up at all.

"Hi Baker." Steph stayed where she was, near the room's only window, still not entirely sure how to react to the guard's presence. Without him, she'd never have found Jason in time to save Jason, but he could have told her much sooner and saved both her, Jason and everyone else in Gotham a lot of grief.

"I, I'm s, sorry about your brother." Baker said, turning over the box he held close to his chest nervously. "'Swear I didn't think h, he was down there, didn't know down there was real. So, so sorry."

"S'okay Jeff." Stephanie might have had some trouble holding back a groan if Tim hadn't been tensed up minutely and curled his fingers. "This is Red Robin." She introduced the boy with as much of a smile as she could manage. "Red Robin, Baker. You said you…"

"Actually we've gotten some new intell that suggests he's still alive somewhere." Tim cut in, clearly taking the introduction as his cue to take over. Steph let out a huff and pretended not to notice.

"I don't know, uh…" Baker looked helplessly between Steph and Tim like he'd been caught in some kind of trap. "That's not, I wouldn't have heard about that, but's good?" He finished off with his eyes fixed on Steph.

"We got the ' _intel_ ' from Schools, so…" Steph shrugged and crinkled her nose a little. "It's be really great if you heard your buddy say something out of context, huh?"

"No." Baker shook his head and practically shoved the object he'd been clutching at her.

"Cards?" Steph shuffled through the deck, raising an eyebrow at him.

"They're the ones he had, I uh, had to take them, 'cause of the…" He made a cutting motion across his neck and pointed at the cards. "Just thought you'd… I uh, I couldn't get the, the books too, but they're in the s, storage. Just thought you'd, you deserved to have something f, from him."

"Thanks Jeff." Steph felt her smile grow more genuine and tucked the cards away carefully. Her victory in their still pending poker rematch would be even sweeter if it was played with the original deck of cards.

"You asked us all the way here, to give Batgirl some cards?" Tim's voice was just on the edge of being his own version of the batgrowl.

"N, no." He inched around them to the back of the office and lifted two silver trays off the desk, handing them over Tim like he was holding meat at the mouth of a tiger. Steph noted belatedly that the bloodstains on one of them were from her short-lived rampage through the asylum. "Someone wiped the recordings and the other guards are all," He swallowed dryly and stepped away from Tim. "Everyone who saw her, they're all g, gone."

"Saw who?" Tim asked, and Steph could practically see Baker closing up every time the boy spoke. It wasn't hard to see why with how stiff Tim was being right then, but it wasn't helping with the questioning at all.

She put herself just a little between Tim and Baker, only enough to keep the man's attention mostly on her and calm him down a little.

"A woman, she came here, t, twice that I know of, just, threw around money like it was, n, nothing." He brought a hand to the back of his head and averted his gaze. "You can, get her prints off these and, uh, know who she is, right. Before she, uh has anyone else k, killed?"

Steph glanced over at Tim, who was looking over the trays as though they didn't already know where the things had come from. It would of fit, Talia being responsible for the string of ' _accidents_ ' and ' _suicides_ ' succeeding Jason's departure from Arkham. She, like her father, didn't like having witnesses around, no matter how well she'd paid them off.

What didn't fit was Talia leaving the witnesses alive as long as she had. Steph would have expected her to subtly get rid of the guards over a period of time after her initial visit, not pretty much all in one go months later.

"That's it?" Tim's voice broke Steph out of her thoughts. Baker just gave a shaky nod and the one Tim returned was confident. He cocked his head at Steph and moved for the window.

She blinked after him, feet staying planted right where they were. Tim always asked follow up questions, tried to dredge up information the person he was talking to might have forgotten, or was trying to hide. He only stopped when he was sure the speaker had told him absolutely everything he could possibly use.

"Batgirl." Baker said, reaching out a hand, but not quite touching her. "There are only three of us left who've seen her."

If Baker was right about Talia's targets, then he was on her hitlist too.

"We'll deal with it." Tim said disinterestedly, already typing something up on that computer he always carried around, probably a message to one of those informants he had everywhere. That was one resource she didn't envy him. Assassins were creepy, and while she was happy enough to work with them when she had to, sustained contact was just… Assassins were creepy okay.

Would have been nice to know what was going on for a change though.

They stuck around a few minutes more, but the rest of what Baker had to offer was mostly more condolences concerning Jason and nervous glances sent at Tim.

They were almost back to where they'd parked their bikes when Tim asked her if he could give the cards to Bruce for ' _analyses_ ', she couldn't really find it in herself to say no. It wasn't like she didn't have her own way of maybe finding out what Talia had been up to at Arkham.

x

x

x

There was always something going down in Gotham, some rodent who thought they would be the one to pull the wool over the bat's eyes or conspiracy to get sucked into.

It wasn't like Jason had forgotten this during his time spent out of the loop, but it had been pushed to the very, very back of his mind.

Only now that he'd gotten actively involved that he'd had to deal with it again. There were at least twelve new gangs carving up territory for themselves, three of them more like harmless biker clubs and beneath his notice, while the rest had actually done some damage.

Five new drug variants, not including frenzy, had hit the streets, one of them containing high doses of venom mixed in with an opiate that wasn't exactly heroine, but close. Thankfully, that one had mostly dried up since Bruce forced Bane to stop operations in the city, so at least one good thing had come out of the clusterfuck that had been Jason's escape attempt.

Jason was still waiting for some kind of retaliatory fallout with that one.

Problem was, far as he could tell, remnants of the venom operation were also dealing in frenzy, and they knew what they were doing.

The resources he could tap into without showing up as the Red Hood weren't enough to dredge up anymore than a vague idea of their supply lines and it didn't help that the leads he turned over to the bats via Blondie barely left him anything to follow up on.

On top of it, the whole things connection to Arkham left him on edge. It wasn't enough they'd been pumping their patients full of that shit, they 'd graduated to snatching people off the streets too. Or maybe they'd started on the streets, struck a deal with the asylum to get more test subjects.

Even the dozens of crime bosses disappearing couldn't be seen as a plus, not when they left power vacuums that left a trail of blood that left hardly anyone who knew what the fuck was going on too scared to advertise.

In short, Jason was way past done with the city and in no mood to deal with the guy who couldn't take a hint that Jason really wasn't looking for a job, and no he didn't care how low risk and high paying the job at the docks would be.

"Come on, smart kid like you can tell there's hardly no risk in a job like this, I'll even make sure to have ya bailed out if ya get caught." Because that was something that happened about never. Jason looked across the bar at his booth, already occupied with dinner just an order away. "And hey, if the bat shows up maybe you get a scar and a story to tell next time you're looking for work."

Jason had to think for a second to be sure that was what the man had really said, then the absurdity of the whole thing hit home and startled a bark of laughter out of him. If Jason ran into any of the bats in his condition he doubted he'd be leaving with just s a fresh scar and yet another story. His hand moved partway towards the scar already at his neck before he could think about it.

"My boss don't like me doin' work on the side, man." That part was true enough, for a certain definition of 'boss'. Jason spread his arms out to encompass the whole of the bar as he brushed past the guy and backed towards his booth. "Sure one of these tools can put in the extra hours."

The guy looked annoyed more than anything else, the rest of the patrons apparently looked less likely to buy whatever story he was selling, but he left Jason to begin scouting again anyway.

Jason dropped into the seat across from Blondie, ignored her raised eyebrow and ordered the number five while she leaned over the table to rest her chin on her interlocked fingers.

"You dyed your hair." She said, the grin on her face too sharp for him to be comfortable just yet. "You can't ever deny it again."

He ran a hand through his newly dyed black bangs and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her. "I've never dyed my fucking hair, Blondie, not once. Thought we covered this already."

"I didn't have proof, and then I forgot, but now." She waved her hands at him. "You have to admit it now."

"We're seriously gonna argue about my hair and not the shady suit waltzing around?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Honestly I was kinda scared to ask, but who is he, one of your super secret informants from your days as a crimelord? Does he want out? Did you forget his severance package and he went to the union? I told you they were gonna rebel if you didn't stop terrorizing them like that Jason. The guards at Arkham are _still_ terrified of you, Baker actually asked me if I thought your ghost came back to kill off all of the guys who pissed you off." The grin melted off her face, replaced by a fake solemnity that made it hard for him to keep his own expression blank. "He also says he's sorry for stealing your cards and he prays every night that you get a new deck in the afterlife. He gave them to me, but I kinda lost them."

While she'd been talking he snagged one of the many pages she had spread out in front of her. "No, he was looking for some hired muscle and you can tell your friend that he'd better not get near any grave yards, cause my undead ass is waiting for a chance to kick his."

She snatched the homework he'd started writing over – it was paragraph upon paragraph of conjunctions how the fuck had she even passed her last course? – and pushed a sheaf of paper held together with enough paper clips to rebuild the Eiffel tower towards him.

"Some missing people and suspects. Do your homework and leave mine alone." She cradled the, now wrinkled, paper to her chest and glared at him before shifting her eyes to the guy chatting up another group of men. "So what is it just, 'Hey we're doing some illegal stuff tonight, you want in?'" Her face scrunched up. "What if they accidently ask an off duty cop."

"Cops don't come in here." Jason inched his hand nearer to the stack of textbooks at her elbow while she watched on with a bemused frown. He wasn't going to be reading through anything from Arkham until he was somewhere a lot less public.

"Sure they d…" Her head snapped up and she locked her widened eyes with him. The cook approached and dropped two plates of chili-dogs and sodas on the table and Blondie stayed quiet only until the woman disappeared again. "Please tell me we haven't been hanging out in a supervillian bar."

"Of course not." Jason watched her relax minutely, waiting for her to let out a relieved sigh before he continued. "It's a thug bar."

"What?!" Her head spun around, looking over the place like she thought someone was about to get mugged. She looked back at him and slouched down in her chair until she'd mostly disappeared beneath the table.

"You're overreacting. It's mostly tax evasion and insurance fraud." He took a bite of his chilidog and chewed while he watched her stew. "That guy over there's looking for some idiots to fake steal a shipment so he can say it never went out. No export tax."

"And you're not gonna." She made shooting motions with her hands.

"The hell'd I care? 'S how half the people round here make a living." It was how his father had made a living before he'd gone and gotten himself involved with a supervillian. Those kinds of jobs never really popped up at The Dive though and for good reason. The guys working for those freaks either went insane, quit before a week was up, or stuck it out for the street cred working for one of the big names could bring – so, also insane.

"I've been coming here for a while, how come no one's ever offered ' _me_ ' a job?" She lifted her chilidog off her plate. "I'm weirdly offended right now, aren't I evil looking enough?"

"You're in here every day, at the same booth, with the same guy, passing papers back and forth, go quiet every time there's someone within earshot and ya don't advertise enough ta be a call girl." Jason drank down a third of his soda by the time she found her voice.

"Oh my god." Her head hit the table with a thunk, the sob she let out was overdoing it a bit though. "They think I'm hiring. My dad would be so proud." Her wail had to be soft, so they didn't draw too much attention, but it got the point across.

"Relax." He shuffled through her homework again. "Don't think of it as making a name for yourself in the underworld, think of it as a fallback incase the college degree doesn't pan out." He snorted and held the papers back to her. "Ya might need it."

"Relax? In Gotham." She slid the pages into a binder and sniffled, looking up at him with eyes that lacked any trace of redness, she shoveled down some food before talking. "My life is now devoted to expanding my control from just this table, until I have the whole of the bar under my control, and eventually the city. Where do crimelords even go to relax in Gotham, like massage parlors or something?"

"Nah, you need a proper lair to plot your schemes from in peace. Like a manor on a hill surrounded by miles of woodland, or a dark cave, or an ominous clocktower, or a fortress of ice, maybe look into getting a space…"

"Okay Jason I get it." She grinned and pressed a hand over his mouth. "Hey, what about an abandoned observatory?"

"There's only one unabandoned observatory in Gotham." He pointed out, though it was likely another had opened and gone under, that wasn't really the sort of thing he kept track of.

"Come on, I'll show you." She finished off her soda then scooped up her half eaten chilidog as she stood.

He raised an eyebrow at her, but made no move to get up. He'd been trawling after drug dealers all day and squeezing into places he'd regained to much weight to fit into. Getting up within the next hour just wasn't in the cards for him right then.

"You're too paranoid to go out after dark, we have to go no now." She tugged on his arm with her free hand. "Please, I'll stop teasing you about your hair."

"We're adults, Blondie; ya can't tease me to begin with." He carried on eating his food. "Drag one of your justice friends with you."

She rolled her eyes and huffed loudly. "No we're not. Come on, please. All my friends are too busy to hang out with me. One of them is literally in space, Jason. I haven't seen her in months. I'm all sad and lonely, and I went with _you_ to rob drug dealers."

"You're not going to stop until I get up, are you?" He drank the last of his soda and she blinked innocently down at him, tugging gently on his hand. "I need to find new bar." He sighed and dragged himself to his feet.

She let out a whoop and kept her hold on his hand as she led him out. He looked down at her fingers wrapped around his and found that it didn't bother him nearly as much as he thought it would.

x

x

x

Night was coming early by the time they got there the sky prematurely darkened by the heavy rainclouds that were as common in Gotham's summers as blizzards were in winter.

"That isn't an observatory."

They stood at a wire mesh fence, peering at the ruins of a building just barely visible past the dense copse of trees that were likely the work of some meta because they couldn't have grown in the few years since Steph had been there last.

"Used to be a planetarium." She pressed her head against the wire hard enough to leave the pattern indented on her skin. "Y'know, fake stars cause Ima fake criminal, thought it'd be funny."

With a sigh, she turned to leave, tightening the ponytail the wind had blown loose. They wouldn't have been able to stay long anyway, she had to get ready for patrol soon and Jason was…

There was only one set of footsteps crunching on the overgrown gravel, Jason wasn't following after her.

Behind her, the fence rattled loudly and she spun just in time to see Jason land on the other side.

"C'mon Blondie, you're not stupid enough to think vigilantism isn't a crime right?" He scoffed, but the smirk on his face wasn't nearly mocking enough for it to sting. "Some Batgirl you are. If the projectors still there, ya get fake, illegal stars."

She groaned, even as she hooked her fingers into the links and pulled herself up and over the fence. "I can't take you anywhere without…"

Something rattled deep in the darkening woods, emitting a keening cry that had both Jason and Stephanie snapping their heads towards the trees.

"If this is a plan to sacrifice me to Cthulu, I'm warning you…" He turned his intense gaze on her and said with absolute seriousness. "I've come back to life before and I can damn well do it again."

"Jason." Stephanie tried to keep her own tone just as serious. "You deserve better. If I were gonna sacrifice you to anyone it would be Slenderman."

"I will fucking haunt you." He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of the jacket he had on over his hoody and marched forward.

Steph laughed and followed after, broken asphalt crunching under their feet as they crossed the ruined parking lot, passing by a rusted, dented old solar system that had once lit up and moved at the entrance.

The doors were locked, but that wasn't exactly a problem when most of a wall and part of it's ceiling had cave in. Jason broke the lock anyway.

The inside was even worse off. The purple upholstery of the chairs having been mostly carried off, and the chairs themselves only so much broken plastic. Grass had grown into the room, taking over part of the tiled floor, even dotting it with some pale white flowers.

Steph stood in the center of it while somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled ominously. She took in the space as much as she could with the little light there was while Jason disappeared somewhere near the back. She looked at the char marks decorating the walls and wondered why no one had bothered to rebuild. The place had been well liked years ago, so it wasn't liked there wasn't anything to be gained by fixing it up.

A mechanical screech echoed through the room, sudden and loud enough that she had to clamp her hands over her ears. Just as suddenly it was gone and the dome came alive with stars. Multi colored pinpricks of light that moved steadily across the walls, ceiling and floor. Where there was nothing to keep them in they spilled across the wooded area to dance across the trees.

"Found the projector." Jason popped back into view, his face scrunched up in distaste as he brushed dust and spider webs out of his hair. His hand came back covered in webbing and even a small spider. "Fuck." He shook his hand to dislodge the crawling thing as he came forward, frowning at her amused grin. "Shut up, wolf spiders are poisonous."

"Oh no, I've been poisoned." Steph chuckled and folded her hands behind her head as she tipped backwards, wanting to rest on the softer looking grassy parts of the ground. She almost thought she heard Jason let out a shout, but the face that looked over her was as unimpressed by her antics as always.

"You really get bitten and Ima leave you here to die."

"I've swooned." Steph flung an arm over her eyes and made grabby motions with her free hand. "I don't think I'll make it."

He sighed loudly and there was a muffled thump, then she felt the slight increase of temperature that came with having another body close by.

Steph uncovered her face and shuffled a little closer to him. Summer or not the wind was chilly and extra warmth was welcome. Her arm brushed against his and he pulled sharply away, covering the action by moving the arms further to pillow his head.

"It's just like being in space." Steph stretched out and ran her fingertips over the soft blades of grass, watching the way the stars caught against her skin. "I've never been to space." She shifted her eyes to catch his. "Used to come here in highschool. Mostly to make out in the back, but like a hundred other teenagers too. Sucks that they didn't rebuild after whatever happened. I mean, all you really need is the projector, huh."

"Damage like this? Too much trouble, get a payout from insurance and retire, maybe start up a replacement business somewhere better. Let the ruins be someone else's problem." He snorted. "Why put in the work if you don't have to?"

Steph studied the moon drifting across the cracked ceiling and the smattering of stars lighting up the pale flowers, she plucked one of the ground to turn it over between her fingers. "Cause a lot of people loved it."

Those same stars passed over his face, across the pale scar at his throat, they reflected in his partly closed teal eyes. Feeling her watching him, Jason, cocked his head to look back at her with a questioning furrow to his brows while lightning flickered between the heavy clouds covering the sky.

"I kind of love it this way too." She tossed the flower at him, but he caught it before it could hit his face and twirled it between two fingers so it took off into the air like a mini helicopter when he let it go. The wind picked up and carried the little flower out of sight. "It's beautiful."

"Until you get bitten by a wolf spider." Jason shook his head and shifted his position to look through the grass.

"You literally came back from the dead, how can you be such a pessimist?" She flicked a longer blade of grass that was ticking her wrist.

His lips parted, the upturn of his lips hinting at his next words being some kind of joke response, but the expression faded before he actually said anything. Above their heads, the clouds rumbled and blew away, exposing the moon for just a second before it was covered up again.

"From the get go only one person was ever anything but pessimistic about that." He sat up with something that might have been a sigh had it been louder. "And she's pretty fucking pissed at me right now. We should leave before the storm breaks."

Standing, he offered a hand to help her do the same, but instead of letting him pull her to her feet, she gripped tightly and pulled him back down. It was unexpected enough that his feet slipped out from under him, and with a surprised shout, he was sprawled on the grass again.

"The hell, Blondie!"

"Y'know, I'm not pissed at you, and I'm like, the most optimistic person I know." She rolled over to lean almost over him and softly poked his forehead.

"I've figured." His voice was tight, the muscles in his body tensed up. She ran the finger down the bridge of his nose without really thinking about it, watching the stars pass over him again she brought it to cover his mouth before he caught it, gently prying it away. "What are you doing?"

"I just noticed you have some freckles." She pulled her hand back to her chest, feeling her face heat up. "Like tiny little stars aaall over your face." Her grin was more nervous than playful, but she had a feeling he'd turned away too fast to notice anyway. "It's kind of adorable."

"You're insane." He threw an arm over his eyes and groaned loudly.

"Yeah, but I bet all your friends are, so I fit right in, right?" She rested her chin on her interlinked fingers. "Bet Talia'll stop kidnapping me if I get into your supervillian club."

"You don't wanna be part of that club, trust me." He brought down the arm and rolled his eyes. "Make one joke and Deathstroke's sending Vertigo after you."

"You pissed off Deathstroke?" She chuckled. "That how you got that scar on your neck?"

His hand went to the thick white line at his throat, but whatever other reaction he might have had, he brushed away before she could acknowledge it. "You wanna hear that story ask Bruce, she knows all about it." He said bitterly, then smiled sharply up at her. "Old Mister Wilson wouldn't have tried to damage me that much back then."

"Cause you'd kick him out of the club?"

"No, I was never part of the club either, Talia woulda suspended his membership though."

"What is it with you and Talia anyway?" Steph rested head on his shoulder and tried to make the question sound casual, she was pretty sure she didn't pull it off. It was doubtful he'd be straight with her if she asked upfront whether he the woman had been offing the staff at Arkham, if he even knew, and she didn't want to push him on that anyway.

"Talia's…" Instead of pushing her away like she'd been expecting, Jason just gathered up the strands of her hair that had strayed near his face and arranged them back around her head while he thought. "She's there." He said finally, softly as he pressed against the ends of a lock of hair with a fingertip. "I owe her a lot, but it's a damn long story and we aint got time before the storm drowns us outta here."

"But it's so nice." She shifted so her head was cradled more securely on his shoulder and started picking more flowers. "Maybe the clouds'll blow over."

"We're not that lucky." He closed his eyes and pillowed his head on the arm she wasn't laying on.

"Not like we can't handle some bad weather." She piled her flowers on her chest and began looping the stems into a chain. "And there's…" She squinted up at the starry ceiling, "kind of a roof. Bet we'll be fine, you're just worried the acid rain'll wash out your hair dye."

"You're ' _too_ ' optimistic." He said. "And it's not dyed."

"Hey, you shoot people, this is my way of one upping the world."

"Huh." He let out a puff of air. "Okay Sunshine."

"Sucks that you dyed it, the streak was pretty cool."

The storm broke about twenty minutes later, and they were both thoroughly soaked before they could make it to anything resembling cover.

 **x**

 **x**

 **x**

 **So i don't usually do this, but I've noticed that the perspectives in this story have grown kind of limited.**

 **If anyone would like to see a scene from the point of view for characters other than Jason an Stephanie: Like their reactions when they found the tapes, Jason's disappearance, etc, drop your requests in a review or a PM if you're shy and if there aren't any spoliers in that scene I'll write it up separately from this so you can see what the others have been up to.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	22. Party

Jim O'Neil, small time meth dealer turned supplier, hurried down multiple flights of stairs at a pace just short of a run, no longer stopping at the elevator doors that lit up only to die down whenever he tried to use them.

He was nervous, would have been stupid not to be with all the break ins where nothing was stolen, things that had gone missing with no signs of a break in and notes left in places no one but him even knew about.

A rhythmic banging sounded out behind him and he made one more, desperate try for the elevator, sobbing when the door opened and he could rush inside.

His relief was short lived when suddenly the lights went out and the lift ground to a stop. Stunned, he stood like a statue for a full minute before he snapped out of it and started banging on the walls, screaming for someone to rescue him.

His cries went unanswered until he'd quieted down and the hatch at the top of the lift slid open with an echoing thunk. O'Neil was just tall enough to hook his fingers on the edges of the opening, but before he could attempt pulling himself up, the lift started up again and the man dropped back to the floor, landing on his ass with a shout.

By the time he got to the basement parking, he was a sweating mess and gave up all pretenses of walking to his car like the suave criminal mastermind he tried to present himself as. He broke into a mad dash, leaping over more cars than he twisted around.

At the other end of the lot, Jason finished off the candy bar he'd been snacking on and lowered the screen displaying the feeds of multiple cameras he'd set up on the path from O'Neils apartment to the parking lot as he pulled down his ski mask.

Amusingly, the first thing O'Neil went for when he slipped in the car he hadn't taken a second to check for intruders, was the candy bar that had been stashed in his dash.

Jason took a lot of satisfaction in dropping the wrapper into the guy's lap. "Yeah, your fat ass took so long I got hungry." It hadn't exactly been a cake, but he'd treat himself where he could.

The man's attempt at making a run for it was cut short by the gun Jason pressed to the back of his head.

"Come on now, dine and dash isn't half as stylish if you don't dine first." Jason lowered his voice. "Drive."

"Fuck you, you little prick!" The man growled, surprisingly brave for someone who'd come an atoms width from pissing himself not a minute ago. "You can fucking end me now if ya want, I aint turning out like those pissed dumbasses he got working for him. Ya can tell the Red Hood to shove his fucking proposal down his filthy…"

"Whoa, whoa, that language aint fucking doin' it for me, buddy." Jason rapped his knuckles on the guy's temple, forcing mirth into his voice despite the little prickling of ice that needled at his chest at the mention of his former persona. "What's this I hear about the Hood?"

"You aint his one o his lackies?" The man asked, looking somehow terrified and relieved at the same time.

Jason laughed then, low and deep as he brought his lips level with O'Neils ear. "Not even on the reservation, but I'd love to hear more. Now…" he reached over to turn the key in the ignition. "Drive."

Jason had a feeling this was going to take all fucking day, not that he'd expected the universe to cut him a fucking break for once.

o

o

o

And it looked like no breaks were coming for the foreseeable future.

Jason slammed his door shut and reactivated his security before stomping across to the only walled off area of his studio apartment. He peeled off his sweaty jacket along the way, wrinkling his nose at the stench.

He'd already missed their meet up at The Dive and now… There was no meet up at the Dive that day, she had some Bat thing she had to do. He tossed the jacket into some corner where he didn't have to look at it.

It would have bothered him a little to leave it laying there, but all he could think about right then was a long, scalding shower without a camera pointing at him, and then curling into his massive bed until he met up with Little Miss Sunshine for lunch the next day.

He was halfway undressed before his stomach reminded him that some food before then would've been extremely welcome too. It took some consideration for him to decide between chowing down on whatever he could scratch up in his fridge, or ordering out.

If he called before the shower it could be waiting for him not long after he was done. His phone was in his jacket pocket, which was attached to the jacket he'd tossed across the damn room, and he was already right next to the shower his tensed muscles craved – downside of gaining back some of the weight he'd shed was not being able to comfortably squeeze into tight spaces.

He had a moment to be taken back by how liberating it was to be able to make such simple, petty decisions again before the tapping at his front door distracted him.

His security system was activated, very few people should have been capable of getting near that door without him noticing it, and none of those people were good news. A grab for one of his hidden guns was cut short by the biting voice on the other side of the door.

No breaks at all.

o

o

o

Bored.

That kind of bored where all you could do was stand in a corner, chewing on a chocolate cupcake because any attempts at livening things up felt like sacrilege. Steph pressed herself against a wall and listened to Bab's yelling at Huntress about something over the hasty set up she'd thrown together moments after arriving.

Steph was glad she wasn't on ' _that_ ' mission.

She wasn't even sure why she'd been invited to whatever the little get together was supposed to be, only that it felt like kind of a family thing.

Damian stood by the large windows, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he glared at the rainy city below for all he was worth. Tim's voice drifted unintelligibly from where he was chatting away with Dick who'd gone to answer the buzzing from the elevator, and Alfred was in the kitchen, churning out still more of the warm cupcakes that no one else had so much as touched.

Cass was supposed to be there, that was the only reason Steph had even shown up, yet her friend was nowhere to be see. She was going to give off some very 'not happy' vibes when her friend finally did show up.

There really were a lot of cupcakes, and Steph was giving thought to asking if she could pack some up to share with Jason later when she noticed the picture hanging on the wall not far from where she stood.

Old, and looking like it had seen better days with yellowing edges curling up to meet the glass of the frame and some kind of smoke damage dotting the surface.

Just two people standing atop a slope with a snowy mountainous background. Dick, with his arm wrapped around a young boy. She studied the boy's face, his cocky grin, the loose posture of his shoulders set off by tension in the arms shoved into his pockets. So similar to when she'd dragged Jason with her to the planetarium.

But that couldn't be right, Jason's eyes weren't that blue, and he was at least six feet tall, there was no way he'd ever been so…

She didn't even realize her fingers had been reaching for the frame until a hand closed gently around her wrist. Her head snapped up to see Dick, looking between her and the picture, expression shifting too fast for her to read.

"Damnit Helena!"

Bab's shout broke him from whatever episode he was having. He dropped Steph's arm, taking a Steph away from her and slipping a mockery of a smile onto his face.

"That's literally the only picture of us together, and I think Alfred would skin us if we gave him a reason to spend another two hour polishing it."

Steph let out a nervous squeaking sound and clutched the hand to her chest. "Sorry." She chuckled. "HE just looks so tiny, I mean, I really can't believe that's him, he got so…" She raised one hand above her head to illustrate the difference in height between the boy in the picture and the one she'd stolen onion rings from a day ago.

Dick's smile shifted to something more genuine while also being one of the saddest things Steph had ever seen. Someone rested a hand on his shoulder and for the first time, she go a look at the dark haired woman who was unfortunately _not_ Cass.

"He seems happy enough there." She said gently.

Dick snorted and rested his hand against the frame. He titled it back and forth as though it wasn't already perfectly straight already, bringing Steph's attention to the little scrapes in the wallpaper that gave away just how often he must have been doing that. "I had to bribe him for this picture, to prove to Bruce I was keeping him alive. There was an all you can eat buffet and he didn't want to leave." He chuckled and his hands dropped to his sides. "He wouldn't stop putting marshmallows in his curry."

Steph let out a short bark of laughter, tilting back on her heals. "God you'd think he'd grow out of that huh?" She suddenly felt herself in the sights of two very curious pairs of eyes. "Uh…" She tugged at the hem of her shirt and averted her gaze, trying to keep calm while she felt her insides burning up and fuck that had been a mistake.

"You know, I uh, brought him marshmallows once and he wanted chili sauce with it, but I thought he was just messing with me, and so I didn't bring any, like, maybe I would have, but right after that was when he got real sick and…" Oh god their faces, why wasn't anyone telling her to shut up, that was why she needed Cass. "I, uh…"

She couldn't have been more grateful for the sudden bout of crashes and cursing that erupted from Bab's slapdash computer room.

"I should go make sure she doesn't throw one of those computers out the window." Dick shrugged before patting the new woman on the shoulder. "Stephanie, this is Donna. Donna, Stephanie's the newest Batgirl, get along okay."

Steph waited until he was out of sight before she let herself bury her red face in her hands and collapsed against the wall for support. "I'm the worst person ever." She scrubbed at her face as though it could erase the thing away and she'd never have to show it again.

Donna laughed, and a peek through her fingers showed Steph that yes, the sound was almost genuine.

"There are a lot of people who'd love to take that title from you." She put a little silver box on a little table near the picture next to another one wrapped in green. "You shouldn't feel too bad about it, it's good for then to know that some people have good memories of him."

"Yeah well, the last time I said something about my memories I made Dick…" Steph caught herself before she could tell this virtual stranger about Dick crying in the Batcave. It had freaked Steph out, and she didn't want to think about what would happen if it got out to the rest of the community. "Remember the bad parts." She snatched up another cupcake, hoping the chocolaty goodness would ease her mortification somewhat.

"I just came here cause my friend asked, I don't even know what this thing is, it's like a funeral." She swallowed her cupcake before turning wide eyed to the woman, depressing atmosphere, polishing pictures, comfort food… "This isn't a funeral right?"

"No." Donna shook her head only slightly. "It's not a funeral, it's just…"

Before she could finish, there was a crash and Tim stumbled back into the room, calling for Bab's to call Bruce.

Cass finally appeared had finally appeared. Steph's sudden excitement at seeing her best friend was immediately dampened when took in that said best friend was wearing a very disheveled Black Bat costume, and seemed to be having a hard time staying on her feet.

Steph leaped forward to support her best friend and help the girl to the sofa nearby. Damian had gotten Alfred and Cass was muttering about poison while Bab's hurried into the open, already talking about finding antidotes.

"No time." Cass said, and Steph felt something cold trickling into her blood before her friend even said her next word. "Talia."

o

o

o

Stephanie ducked under the flurry of small knives that were sent her way, pivoting on her toes as they flew overhead before pushing off to continue her chase. The rain still hadn't let up, making everything slick and impossible to traverse with at her usual speed.

Stupid ninja, why did hers have to be one of those who ran all over the freaking place when they were fighting. The others were all in relatively the same places they'd been when they'd come across Talia's new lackeys, at the house of some oldish woman the creeps had been trying to off, but Steph had moved at least twelve blocks away.

Steph complaining got her an earful from a stressed out Barbara about staying focused on her mission.

Said mission turning out to be a game of rooftop tag that was significantly less fun than when she did it with Cass. Another knife came at her neck and Steph dodged just a second too late, getting a slice across her chin, and wasn't that just perfect? Now she had to chase after the asshole with blood dripping down her neck.

She really wished Cass could have been the one to chase after the freak, her friend would have caught him in no time flat, but Bruce had her guarding the prison like Schools even deserved their protection when he still refused to say anything.

When she caught the guy she was going to…

' _Batgirl, how far did you say you've gone out_?' There was a banging sound present in the background of Tim's comm.

"About a dozen blocks." The ninja dropped down from the rooftops, doing a bunch of fancy acrobatics while descending a fire-escape. "Aw great." Steph groaned, she just had to get a show off on top of everything, like the day hadn't beaten down her self-esteem enough yet. "Why?"

' _Stay where you are_.' Tim's voice was breathy, and Steph could almost hear his grapple going off. ' _It's a trap_.'

Steph halted her much less graceful descent and leaned against the fire escape, whishing she could pinch the bridge of her nose through the cowl. "I thought she was done trying to kidnap me." She'd given Jason the stupid envelope. What the hell else could Talia have wanted from her?

' _Must have found out we were looking for him again_.' Tim said, the cracking of his comm had died down, so he was getting closer. ' _Might want to pump you for information._ '

"She's killing off people who saw her at Arkham, right?" Steph swallowed, but it did nothing to ease the sudden dryness of her mouth anymore than the icy raindrops dripping off her eyelashes. "You don't thing that maybe…" She looked down at the darkened ally her opponent had vanished into. "You don't think that might include Jay, do you?"

For a few seconds there was near silence over the comms, not even the tapping of computer keys or fighting in the background. Then it was abruptly broken by a chorus of curses that she wasn't in the mind to pin to any of the people she was working with.

Talia would know Steph hung out with Jay just about every day, just like she'd known Steph had been the one to drag him out of Arkham. Did that make Steph an information source or a target once the woman had already gotten to Jason.

' _Batgirl, I want you off the streets_.' It took Steph a second to register that it was Bruce speaking for the first time that night.

' _The caves too far, but Troia's still at my place, wait there_.' Dick chimed in.

"No, we need to find her, what if she's…" There was a knot in Stephanie's throat, making it hard to speak. She couldn't sit the night out, if she could distract Talia long enough, then maybe Jason.

' _We can't afford her getting the information we do have from you, get off the streets_.' Bab's ordered, but Steph barely registered it.

She hadn't seen Jason since they'd had lunch at The Dive the day before. Cass had found out Talia was in Gotham not long after that. It was enough time that anything could have happened.

What if he hadn't done whatever it was she'd told him to do in Arkham, or that letter…

' _Batgirl_!' That was Babs again. It shook Steph out of her thoughts and she leaped off the fire escape, climbing higher and higher onto the rooftops.

"Does anyone know where she is yet?" Steph asked as she shot off her grapple in the direction of Dick's penthouse, which thanks to him living in the center of the city was also the direction of her own place.

' _We'll find her_.' Tim said, ' _Just…_ '

"Yeah I know, I'm going. Steph tried to stomp down the fear that was growing in her chest, but she knew it would be as much as she could do just to keep them from noticing it until she was out of her suit and away from the comms.

o

o

o

The relative silence of the room amplified the mechanically distorted sound of screeching tires, broken only by the occasional clinking of porcelain teacups.

Jason opened his mouth to speak, but Talia held up a finger, taking a sip of tea, as the no longer sleek blue sports car on the screen careened around a corner, his own face just barely visible as he fired of some warning shots at the men speeding after them.

He kept his eyes on the screen and, not Talia's face set in that same expression she'd worn when he'd offed his second poisons teacher and trashed her safe house – Jason still wasn't sure which of those the woman had really been upset about.

Thank fuck she hadn't been there in person to smell the alcohol on his breath, not that any of what had happened that night could have been blamed on the little he'd drank, but she definitely wouldn't have seen it that way.

Jason occupied himself with drinking his own tea, hot and sweet and just spicy enough to burn at the back if his throat, instead of Talia's magnified glare. God, Jason was beginning to think that was something both she and Bruce had picked up from Ra's because there was no other explanation as to how they could elicit the exact same reactions just by looking at him.

He noticed some movement behind him and watched the reflection of one of Talia's men in their fancy new reddish, black bodysuits looking over the security on his window.

The car on the screen finally went over the cliff, Jason and Blondie leaping out of the door, rolling to a stop on the on the wet grass, laughing all the way as the resulting explosion soaked them in salty water.

Talia set the screen down and interlaced her fingers in front of her, perfectly manicured nails reflecting the bright yellow lights of Jason's apartment, her lips curved into something that wasn't neutral, but not quite a scowl either.

"Not like it's the first time I've done something like that." Jason said, meeting her eyes when it became obvious she wouldn't talk first.

"Not in your condition, and not without some purpose." Because fifty kilos of cocaine off the street wasn't good enough of a reason on its own. "Not long ago you were incapable of walking normally, yet you recklessly endanger yourself by putting yourself in close proximity to that…" She waved her hand at the now blank screen, he didn't have to think to hard who she was referring to. "You know the consequences if you are apprehended again."

"She coulda let them take me when I was an OD'd mess." He set his empty cup down. "Ya think that'd be easier than lulling me into a false sense of security and taking advantage of me in a moment of weakness as opposed to, ya know, the weeks of weakness from before. A real mastermind we're dealing with here, huh?"

"I recall us having this conversation before Jason, the ending is always the same and disregarding my counsel led to the psychotic break that had you incarcerated in that filthy place to begin with." She spoke calmly, with not even a touch of the anger Jason could feel burning up in his own chest.

"It's not the same" He snatched up a meat pastry from the plate nearest him and began turning it over in his hands, mashing the flaky crust into the mince with his thumb. "There's nothing they could use me for…" Nothing except the experimental drug ring and the missing people who were playing at being lab rats.

Talia smiled, pouring the both of them a fresh cup of tea, she took a sip of hers and grimaced. "Pass me the sugar."

Jason raised an eyebrow at the little bowl of sugar cubes that was sitting closer to her than him, but reached over to push it over to her. Before he could pull back, her hand was wrapped around his wrist, he jerked back reflexively, but didn't break her tight grip.

"You've been subsisting solely on bar food, haven't you?" She asked, slowly turning his arm over in her grip. Behind her he noted one of her people shutting his bare fridge.

"I've been doing a job," He snatched his arm back as soon as she loosened her hold. "Mighta finished it up by now if you'd left me someone to interrogate."

"You know I'd never have let them live after the part they played anymore than I will your handler if you find yourself in a similar situation once your 'job' is complete." The cup in Jason's hand cracked and he set it aside before he inadvertently shattered it. "It's little consolation, but I can take some comfort in that you've gotten yourself attached to the weakest of them. When the inevitable comes she'll be easy to dispose of."

"You let your venom addled rejects touch her and I'll gut every one of them Talia, I fucking swear it." He locked his eyes with hers, unable to relax the tension in his muscles or push down the sudden nausea swirling in his gut. "Whatever goes down I'll deal with it. I never asked you to fight my battles for me."

Talia tensed up for just a second, barely long enough for him to be sure it had even happened before she spoke again, her voice underlined with cool fire. "You've never needed to." She unnecessarily wiped her hands with a napkin before waving one in a loose circle above her head.

He sucked the meat filling off the edges of his fingers while servants stepped forward to box up the barely touched platters of food and Talia stood, her people lining up to leave behind her. It was the same as she'd brought him in Arkham, the little pies she swore he'd preferred when he'd been a brain dead vegetable. His body felt heavy when he pulled himself to his feet.

Stephanie was off limits, she had to be, regardless of Talia's justifications, but he was self aware enough to know that his own reactions in similar circumstances would have been just as extreme. A car bomb in Nyssa Raatko's car could attest to that.

He was really in no position to judge.

"Thank you." He said at last, arms tense at his side and back straight. When he made the mistake of thinking about it he could still feel the pinch of the needle at his neck and the bite of leather restraints digging into his chest. He 'hadn't' asked her to do what she had, hadn't expected her to do anything at all once he was out, but like every time before she had anyway.

'I never needed to ask'. He diverted his eyes out the window showing off the starless Gotham skies, no place had better stars than the desert.

Unbidden came thoughts of artificial stars swirling across strands of hair twirled around his fingertips and grass scratching at the back of his neck, water dripping down to soak him through. A mental shake and they were pushed back before he spoke again.

"But, you know I gotta deal with what's left of it."

She hummed softly and patted his cheek twice, her warm hand rested there for barely a second before it was gone, held out expectantly to receive a thick manila envelope and a dark lacquered wooden box. She held the items out to him

"Yeah maybe." A plastic container was placed in his arms and he watched her leave the room, followed closely by the last of her people.

He really wanted to go somewhere he could see the stars again, and the fucking sun for good measure. Getting out of Gotham for a while didn't sound like a bad idea.

His eyes caught a wilted chain of pale flowers hanging near his books case and he sighed, pausing on the way to his bed to run his fingers over the delicate petals. Any more thought could wait until he'd gotten some sleep.

o

o

o

It wasn't hard to find, and that was the whole problem. If it was terrifyingly easy for her, then how much more so would it have been for Talia with her wealth of recourses to track him down?

Jay had found Steph when she'd shown up at The Dive after they'd caught Schools. ' _My evil supervillian friends told me_.' He'd said. That had to mean he had someone keeping tabs on the place for him, which meant someone there had to know how to contact him.

Lucky Steph, she had a stack of money gathering dust in one of her drawers and something of a reputation she hadn't even known about until recently at the place. All it had taken was some thinly veiled threats and waving around of the cash for someone to give up a location.

Well ,as close of a location as she was sure she was going to get.

That was how she found herself running through an apartment building, pounding on each and every door in the hopes that she would find the right one, feeling sick to the point she thought she'd throw up whenever it took more than a few seconds for her to hear some signs of life on the other side of the door.

She'd even busted into one vacant apartment when her frantic mind had connected the smell of rusted iron to blood.

Even she wasn't sure how long she'd been at it, had given up on checking door numbers and or the time when, as she brought her fist forward to begin knocking on yet another door that a hand wrapped around her wrist. She spun around to break the grip hold and keep going when his voice stopped her.

"Don't you dare, they got kids in there that never fucking sleep." He was standing shirtless in front of an open door, the warm light spilling into the hallway making him seem almost ethereal to her tired mind.

She ran her fingers tips along the scars on his arms, looking him over for any cuts or bullet holes, or bruises, seconds away from calling Leslie if she found anything wrong with him, but there was nothing.

He was fine, he wasn't hurt and he was safe and breathing and…

"Jay…" She breathed out and leaned into him, felt his arms snake tightly around her shoulders for just a few seconds, long enough for her to feel the warmth coming off him through her soaked shirt, the strength in his arms and his heart beating against her before he pulled away. "Talia's here, and she…"

"Yeah she already dropped by." His voice was quiet, softer than she could remember it being before. "You're shivering." He brushed aside a few wild strands of hair, then pressed his palm against her forehead. His thumb brushed against the cut in her neck, and his eyes hardened for just a second before he went calm again. She would have laughed if the tension in her chest had melted away even a little more. "Come on before you die of pneumonia and I have to haul your ass to the morgue."

Curled up on a couch, that was so soft it was criminal, sipping on a novelty mug of spicy tea while she watched the steam rise off another mug on the nearby coffee table, Steph tried to bring her thoughts to something resembling normalcy again.

The familiar teletubby blanket she was wrapped in smelled like almost like the vanilla fabric softener she used, and she could have smiled at the image that popped into her head of Jason doing laundry. She would have pulled it more tightly around her, but the borrowed clothes she was wearing smelled of something else entirely and she didn't want to block out the scent.

"If I knew you'da reacted that way I'da put on a shirt before I got the door." Jay dropped a few things on the table, a cocky smile on his face before he stepped behind her and put a jeweled silver stick in his mouth, muffling his next words. "Or got rid of the pants…"

She was surprised when she felt his hands carding through her hair, but found herself leaning into the touch, brief as it was when he gathered the strands to a loose ball at the top of her head and speared it through with the stick to hold it in place.

He leaned over to look at her face with a small frown on his. "Lean back a little." He settled next to her as he poured antiseptic onto a cotton swab.

She complied, but flinched back when the burning liquid came into contact with the cut under her chin.

Jason laughed at that and waited for her to settle back before he continued. "Got a little something extra in here case your new friend had the Society's patented sleep tonic along."

"Do you have more?" She asked as he cleaned her cut, the burn giving way to the icy cold of the what she guessed was a numbing agent to the solution. "Cass got poisoned and we don't have the exact antidote, so…"

"F she's not dead it'll be outta her system 'fore you get any to her. Not made to kill." He tucked some strands of hair that had escaped the clip behind her ear. "You wanna tell me what's got you all worked up?"

Steph wanted to tell him about the depressing 'party' at the penthouse, and Talia killing of the people who knew she'd visited him, but if he'd already seen the woman , she had no doubt he already knew what she'd been up to, at least mostly. So she just shook her head and turned her attention to glossy wooden box he'd set on the table along with the medical supplies.

"That another head? Cause gross, I don't wanna know." She said.

"Nah, figured since you're here, I'd show you why Talia came over. Y'know, before you ask if we're plotting to take over the nail polish industry." His fingers brushed along her throat, calloused fingers tips rough against her sensitive skin as he pressed a series of bandages against the cut.

She remembered how he'd been back at Arkham, how terrified she's been at him, knew how she would have reacted if he'd gotten those hands anywhere near her throat.

She remembered him being too weak to walk, weighing so much less than someone his height should have, holding him down so Leslie could get the medicine in him that would save his life.

Most of the time she'd known him, she'd been either afraid of him or for him. She couldn't remember when that had changed.

He tilted her head back a little more and slid his fingers along her throat, fastening the bandages in place with medical tape, his face set in a look of intense concentration. Noticing her eyes on him, his widened and she licked his lips before smiling and turning away quickly to gather up the supplies.

"So what is in the box?" She asked, reaching one hand hovering over it in a quiet request for permission.

He waved his antiseptic covered fingers and got up. "Gotta was this crap off my hand real quick." He went over to the kitchenette, and Steph had never been so grateful to be in a studio apartment when it meant he was within eyeshot of her the whole time. "You wanna watch a movie or something while your clothes dry?"

She picked up the box and slid it open, revealing the pair of knives with wavy blades, and was that real gold embedded in the red hilts? The metal had been dulled so it wouldn't glint, but a gentle press with her fingertips revealed that it ' _was_ ' real.

Jason got back, drying his hands on his sweat pants as he dropped down onto the couch besides her and lifted one of the knives, so careful she would have called it reverence had he been anyone else.

"They're kris flame daggers." He explained, smiling as he turned the weapon in his hands. "No idea what these are made of, but they make other knives look like kiddy spoons. Used to have one, but I stabbed a monitor in the head now it's in a universe that stopped existing."

"Can you go a day without referencing killing someone?" Steph reclaimed her cooled mug of tea and took a sip.

"He didn't die, fucker's immortal, didn't even slow down, but man was it cathartic. Miss the knife though, 'nother reason not to go multiverse surfing." He slipped the knife back into it's box, his fingers lingering on the metal just a second longer than they had to.

"I want that story." Steph shut the box and put it back on the table with the same care she would have one of Tim's ancient action figures.

"Maybe some other time." He scratched the back of his neck, eyes shifting away from her.

"She really did just visit you for tea, didn't she?" Steph said softly, running a fingertip along the rim of her mug.

"Yeah." His eye's softened in a way she'd never seen before, but the second it took her to feel something about that was all it took for him to wipe the expression off his face and throw both arms over the back of the sofa, letting out an irritated huff. "An harp on my life choices." He turned to face her, a mischievous smirk on his face that lit up his eyes, making them seem more green then blue against the pale fabric of the couch his head rested on. "She found out about our joyride."

"Did she know we were drunk?" Steph curled up against the back of the couch to rest face just close enough to his that she could feels his breath prickling against her cheek.

"You were drunk." He scoffed, leaning forwards to pick up his mostly cold mug of tea and drain it down, she thought she saw a bit of red creeping up his neck. "She also had a few things to say about my eating habits."

It was almost funny, the idea of Jay sitting, petulantly sipping on tea while Talia scolded him about underage drinking and junk food. No, it was funny, then why wasn't she laughing?

Before she knew what she was doing, Steph found herself clutching the edge of Jason's shirt, reminding her that he was still there, that he could take care of himself and she didn't have to worry about someone coming along and taking him away from her.

Then she thought again of that depressing get together that was supposed to be a party. That should have been happy, maybe could have been, if he'd been there, if there wasn't the very real chance that they 'would' take him away if they found him.

The idea of Talia scolding Jason turned into Alfred, while he baked cupcakes or Dick while Jason rolled his eyes and paid no mind.

Her hands curled tighter in the fabric of his shirt, and that small frown was back on his face. Her mind scrambled to come up to with a reply to the last thing she said, a joke, anything, but there was something blocking off her throat, keeping the words from coming out.

It wasn't fair. Ever since she'd been a little girl wondering why Daddy wasn't home and Mommy was always sleeping, Steph had known not to expect fairness in the world. She felt like a child again for thinking it, but the thought wouldn't go away.

It wasn't fair that Talia got to show up at Jason's home, and be allowed in, to bring him tea and gifts and unwanted life advice. She was an assassin and she's put a bounty out on her child and hurt so many people and worked with people who'd hurt more.

Bruce and Dick and Alfred and Babs, they deserved those things. They were good, and they tried so hard to help people, all of them, but there were boxes sitting at the penthouse while Jason smiled at the one on front of him.

His brows were furrowed now, eyes having lost that glint they'd had before. Steph cradled her mug close to her chest and tried again to speak.

All that came out was a high pitched, shuddery breath. The sound made Jason jump like a gun had gone off at his ear.

"You know, if you really want the shirt off, you still have one IOU left." "all you have to do is ask."

"Y, you said that would take two." She sniffled, trying to put some levity into her voice, she fought the desire to bring her knees to her chest and curl into a ball on his sofa.

"It's two if you want it all off, one gets you halfway there." He rested his chin on the palm of back of his hand, cocky grin in place. "Since I like you, you get to choose which half."

"Why would I want to see either half?" Steph hoped he'd ignore the way her voice cracked as she brushes away the liquid pooling in her eyes with the blanket.

Jason fakes a choking sound and crossed his arms. "If you're gonna be like that, it's back to two." He held up two fingers. "After all the work I put in, you know how many fucking protein shakes i…

"You're really a drama queen." She pressed a hand over his mouth and chuckled, leaning her head against his shoulder, feeling the heat radiating off him the way she had when he's held her at the door. "I was at a party today."

"Yeah you told me yesterday remember." His voice was soft, hands fiddling with a T.V remote he'd taken off the end table. "Don't see what that's got to do with you insulting my muscles."

"It was your party Jay." She caught a sob and turned it into a breath. "And it sucked, there was no music, or games, or anything, you should have been there, we coulda livened it up, huh?"

"When they find me they'll have a very different party, don't worry I'm sure that one'll be a fucking riot." He snorted and looking up got her a glimpse of the faraway look in his eyes.

She shook her head against him and sniffed. "There were great cupcakes though, but nobody was eating them ,and Alfred just kept making more, and Babs was…" Her throat closed up around the rest of her words and her hands balled up the fabric near her face.

"What do you want me to do Sunshine?" His voice was quiet, resigned, not a trace of sarcasm.

She knew she wouldn't ask him to do anything because there was a facility in Central City and the memory of a boy in a dying heap on the floor and those, and strong, healthy, 'there' arms wrapped around her and she couldn't lose that.

Stephanie didn't know how to answer, so she didn't. She stopped holding back her tears and they poured out, and sobs clawed their way past the blockade at her throat. Before she could stop herself, she was bawling into Jason's shirt, mortified, but unable to stop.

Jason didn't try to joke, or make conversation. Soon she felt arms wrapped around herm gingerly at first, like he wasn't sure what he was doing, but they soon tightened and he folded over her, tucking her head against his ribs.

She pressed herself further into his hold and it tightened just enough to be secure.

She was selfish, she was too selfish to let him go, too selfish to let them have him if there was a chance she wouldn't, because he had a hand stroking the short hairs at the nape of her neck and she'd just realized that she would have done anything to keep him there.

So she asked if they could watch a movie instead.

o

o

o

After a while, her sobs died down and she lay still in his arms, staring blankly at the screens as it cast it's bluish light against her tear stained face. His thumb brushed against the bandages at her throat and he was again reminded that Talia would be getting a phone call sooner than expected.

You didn't throw a knife at someone's throat unless you wanted them dead, and while it could be that it had happened before she'd had a chance to relay the order, he couldn't take the chance.

She shifted and he forced himself to calm down, it would be counterproductive of him to be anything but calm right then unless he wanted to set her off again.

It wasn't Talia that had sent Stephanie to him on the verge of a panic attack, or thrown their guilt in her face until she couldn't handle it anymore.

Jason wanted to let them know he was up and kicking, show up with something big, something explosive, remind them why they'd all hated him in the first place, make them bleed for the stupid fucking hero complexes that made them think they had the right to…

One pale hand reached for the table he'd pulled up to the couch at the meat pastries he'd set on it, s flicker of a smile curving on her face at something on the screen. Just a glimpse of her usual brightness, and she was bright enough to burn. He wondered if, when he moved his hand away from the nape of her neck, some of that brightness would have rubbed off on him, would he leave behind dark smudges?

He was just tired enough to consider checking when her cellphone buzzed on the table and she tiredly unlocked it. He didn't look at the screen, but he heard her type out a reply and with every tap he could practically feel her growing dimmer.

Maybe it wasn't their fault after all, not all the way at least. If he had been strong enough to leave Gotham behind when he'd walked out of the clinic, she wouldn't have his secret to weigh her down in the first place.

For now, she'd chosen him over them, and she was suffering for it. She didn't need him purposely casing more trouble.

"Jay, I'm sorry I insulted you muscles." She yawned, and tilted her head just slightly to look up at him. "They're very nice."

He threw and arm over his face, mouth unwillingly curving into a smile that could have almost matched hers.

"Jay?"

"Hm?"

"Happy birthday."

For the first time, someone had chosen him over them, and he didn't know how to feel about it.

 **o** **o** **o** **Yes, I know Stephs birthday is just a few days before his, but shhhh.** **Also, apparently with me the ammount of mushiness in a chapter is directly proportional to how long it takes me to write. That's my only excuse.**


	23. Intermission

"I can't believe you're letting her do this." Dick shook his head and leaned over Barbara's chair to watch her protégé stroll through the halls of Arkham with a half-empty ice-cream carton.

"Shush you, I'm keeping an eye on her." Babs gave him a fondly condescending look, the bluish glow of the screen making her green eyes pop in an almost supernatural way, made him kind of wish she wasn't wearing her glasses so he could see it better. "He's not stupid enough to hurt her with his next hearing in a few months."

"Hey, she's your responsibility, not mine." Dick threw up his hands defensively, a smile still playing on his lips as he took a few steps back. "I just don't know what she's trying to prove here."

"On the surface they're pretty similar…" Babs paused at his derisive scoff and rolled her eyes at him. "On the surface Dick, she's not going to start killing people anytime soon. It's natural for her to be curious about how he got there. You have to admit, you'd be too."

"Yeah, in the way I'd be interested in watching a burned out sewage plant."

Babs minimized the window showing the cell at Arkham and Dick turned away to continue the pre-patrol equipment check he should have been doing at the cave and not Barbara's newly rebuilt clock tower.

"Burned out sewage plants aren't all that dangerous." Babs adjusted her glasses and spun her chair around to face him. 'I'll talk to her again tonight, but I'm sure she'll give up on it herself when she gets whatever she wants out of this or realizes she won't. There's nothing to worry about."

"Like I said, she's your protégé, you know her best." Dick smiled down at her. "I'm not worried."

o

o

o

Dick was worried.

Breakouts at Arkham were always messy, and with many of the heavy hitters currently locked within the asylum, they'd all been expecting some kind of trouble for a while.

Four people dead, and another six in hospital, guards and various other staff as well, was a small number considering how high the death toll often rolled, but that didn't make it any easier for the families who had t bare the loss.

And Jason was gone. Dick wasn't sure how he's hacked the surveillance feed, or gotten his hand s on explosives while according to all sources he's been comatose, but finding out _'how'_ he'd done it wasn't nearly as pressing as figuring out where he'd gone and what he was doing.

The problem was that Todd didn't have any obsession they could track. Not like Dent or Nygma. There was no telling what he was going to do until he did it and people ended up dead.

All Dick ' _could_ ' do was shorten Tim and Damian's patrol times as much as they would allow and make sure there was always someone watching them when he couldn't.

Stephanie, she persisted in scouring the asylum no matter what they tried to tell her. At least it kept her off the streets and away from any retaliation he might have been planning.

Dick pressed a balled fist against his mouth and glared at the glass case displaying its Robin suit innocuously to the side as always. He was tempted for a moment to put that fist right through the glass. Instead, he turned and stormed off to the Batmobile.

He'd have to find out from Arkham exactly what drugs they had Jason on and how they would affect his behavior before they wore off, and 'when' they'd wear off.

With Bruce on the other side of the world, it was Dick s responsibility to get everything ready for a potential attack, but he didn't even want to think about what Jason was doing right then.

o

o

o

Something dark and cold and ' _sick_ ' had settled deep inside of him when he'd entered the room and refused to leave no matter what he did.

Watching the tapes, grainy, old-fashioned footage of what had happened down there only caused it to sink even deeper.

Jason's face as he pulled away from the needle betrayed more fear than he'd thought the other man was even capable of producing anymore.

Arkham was talking. Asking about Gotham's vigilantes, detailing how he'd figured out that Jason knew all of the information the Doctor wanted to know.

Jason would talk, Dick knew he would, and once Arkham knew…

The doctor removed the gag from Jason's mouth and he made a show of stretching his jaw, licking his lips where the fabric had chaffed. When it he spoke, it was too soft for the recording software to pick it up, apparently neither could Arkham.

He leaned in and Jason grinned, then pursed his lips before spitting a wad of pink stained saliva into the doctors face.

Jeremiah growled, livid and drew back a hand as if to hit Jason, but caught himself and calmly raised the syringe of reddish liquid instead.

Jason didn't have time to pull back before Arkham was pushing down the plunger, flooding his bloodstream with the contents in seconds.

Dick could have almost brought up a thought about Jason being too cocky, not knowing when he was beat and being reckless about it.

Then he was gagged again and the convulsions started.

For the first few minutes, Jason screamed like he'd been dipped in fire. The mechanically distorted sound burst from the speakers suddenly enough to have Dick reeling back from them in surprise. Bruce had tensed up for a second but was otherwise unmoved.

The screams died out before the convulsions, and by the time Jason was limp, but for the occasional twitching of his bare feet and hands, Arkham had left and returned. Dick recognized some of the men he'd brought with him as the victims of s string of 'accidents' that had befallen a slew of Arkham's staff before they slipped on grotesque pale masks.

Arkham questioned Jason again, getting a weak go fuck yourself as his only answer. Jeremiah produced a second syringe, the liquid in this one lighter in comparison to the other.

It calmed the final shakes in Jason's body, glazing over his eyes as the men approached, each armed with a long metal rod. Some information from Harley, Jeremiah said.

Dick turned away, sent Tim and Damian out when Bruce was too focused on the screen to either notice or care how his charges would react to the violence.

Eventually the first syringe made another appearance and the cycle repeated.

Dick wanted to reach through the screen, shake Jason until he stopped antagonizing his captors, stopped laughing off Arkham's threats and lobbying his admittedly creative insults at everyone else in the room.

After a week they concluded that Jason wouldn't have survived, even the sudden burst of strength it would have taken for him to run off as Stephanie had described would have been just that.

When that adrenaline died down, without immediate care, so would Jason.

He never answered a single one of Arkham's questions.

Nobody could tell if finding Scholz had been a blessing or curse.

If they should be hoping it was a lie, and Jason was dead, or somehow his captors had kept him alive, but in the same state as he'd been down in Arkham.

There was only so much any man cold take before…

Dick knelt before the glass case, carefully replacing the old, discolored skittles with fresh candy that with fresh candy that was still bright.

It was almost his birthday. If Jason were alive, he'd be twenty in a week. Only twenty. That wasn't even old enough to buy a beer. Dick was reminded of the first time he'd spoken to the nearly resurrected Jason and he'd wanted to go for a drink. Had Jason gone on his own after they'd parted?

The skittles fell from Dick's fingers and he went from crouching in front of the case to kneeling slumped against it.

If Dick had accepted the offer, sat down someplace and ' _talked_ ', would it have come up in the conversation at all? How ' _young_ ' Jason was? Could Dick have reminded him that there were other ways of doing things before the boy had gone so far off the deep end?

If he'd gone back for Jason before one half of the Peirce twins had blown up, would that have convinced the boy that there was enough reason to try and make a home with them?

Dick took a few minutes before he slowly, painstakingly forced himself to gather up the pieces of candy that he'd dropped, arrange them to spell out Jason's name as they had before.

If Jason was still alive, it meant there was still a chance to fix things, make them better. He stood and rested his hand against the case, muttering apologies he hoped Jason would hear someday, and if not, that he could heat wherever he'd ended up.

o

o

o

None of them took the news of a new Red Hood well. After the initial shock, it became obvious through grainy footage and rumors and the testimony of a certain meth supplier who'd thrown himself into the arms of the GCPD, admitting to a rap sheet as long as Dick's leg and begging to be arrested.

The new Red Hood was too bulky, Jason couldn't have gained back that kind of weight so fast, and even if he could, the new guy was way too short.

Beyond physical differences, their operation methods were too dissimilar. Where Jason shot those he'd deemed unworthy of living, this one had every drug lord he could nab doped up on the same highly addictive product he made them sell, killing them off only when they were too far gone to be of

It couldn't be Jason, and Dick felt a rush of guilt for considering the option at all.

Bruce wasn't as convinced and Dick could concede that someone had to prepare for the worse outcomes, he was just glad it wasn't him.

They'd tried to pry more information from Scholz, but the former Arkham guard had remained close lipped and smug as ever.

For hours, Dick could think of nothing but wrapping his hands around the sleazy bastard's neck and squeezing the answers out of him. He made the mistake of admitting as much within earshot of Damian who disappeared not long after.

o

o

o

Babs tracked him to the prison. Bruce was in the middle of a one-man sting operation on yet another bunker filled with the dealers unfortunate enough to have become frenzy test subjects.

Tim was following a lead on Talia, and Dick didn't want either Cass or Steph getting too close to Scholz if he could help it.

He was on the other side of the city when he got the call, and by the time he found Damian the boy was being restrained by Selina after doing a very thorough job of trying to pry more information out of the man.

Anyone else and Dick's empathy would have kicked in with a vengeance, but he found himself too tired to care beyond the anger he had to drag to the surface for Damian.

"This is yours…" She looked past the boy to wrinkle her nose at where Scholz was cowering as far from them as he could get. "I think." She released Damian with a grimace and stepped away.

"Thank you, Catwoman." He grabbed the struggling boy – tired from the effort he'd put into going at his victim with the many tools that still laid scattered around the cell, they were going to have to have a talk with the warden about security very soon – and dragged him passed the whimpering mess of a man in the corner. Damian at least had the sense to stay quiet for the time being.

"If you don't mind me asking..." She stopped Dick's retreat by resting an arm on his shoulder. "This…" She waved her other hand in a vague gesture encompassing the whole situation. "Is it something I should expect to keep happening?"

"If you had had the sense to talk that frivolous insult to Batgirl's cowl into accepting another route them ' _I_ ' would not have been forced to resort to such…"

"Robin, shut up!" So much for keeping his mouth shut. Guilt burned in Dick's chest at the startled look on his partners face, but pushed it down. That…!" He pointed at the cell they had just left. "Is not what we do! Not ever, and especially not because I won't let you try and pay Batgirl to…"

Selina cleared her throat and toed one of the metal tools on the floor, letting it clatter towards Scholz with just a hint of a satisfied smile. "So, that's a not a yes on me having to deal with this again?" she rested an arm on her hip.

If she was disturbed, it wasn't so much at the scene as it was the fact that Damian had been the culprit. Bruce had been doing something terrifyingly similar increasingly often as time went by with no new leads that pointed them towards Jason's fate. Selina, being who she was, would have seen the fallout many times over already.

"Not from him." He tightened his hold on Damian's arm in a way that would have been painful if not for the body armor, and Dick could tell from the boy's near murderous glare that he was in for a lot of trouble as soon as they were out of earshot. "Thank you Catwoman."

o

o

o

Tim liked typing, the sound of the keys clicking while he imputed information into h computer, just typing up his case notes. It was soothing, didn't take much brain power and let his mind rest for a while without making him feel unproductive.

As emotional as a case could be, seeing it in rows of black and white usually made putting things into perspective easier.

With everything crazy as it was, he needed a little break from focusing on work and only work, but watching the words appear on screen didn't make his thoughts shut down like they always did. It only sped them up.

I few feet behind him and to his left he heard what could only be called a giggle from Cass, and he paused his typing to shoot the girls a half-hearted glare before going back to his notes.

They ignored him, much like they'd ignored him when he'd tried to tell Steph off for ' _not'_ going to Dicks penthouse for protection the last time Talia had shown her face in Gotham. She'd gone to a ' _friend_ ' she's said. Because it was nearer and she'd seen more of Talia's people waiting around on the way.

That didn't explain why she hadn't told them that before he'd shown up at the penthouse to find she'd never arrived. When Talia was out for blood, hunting down anyone even remotely connected to Jason's stay at Arkham.

At first it had just been guards, people who'd seen her personally entering the place or knew she'd been there. But it didn't take long for her to branch out. Chefs, janitors, his therapist on the night of his birthday.

Whether scrubbing records to use him for something else if she found him before they did, if she already had him – that was another possibility that he added to his notes.

Another giggle interrupted his thoughts again and he turned to look at the girls again. Both were bent over Stephanie's cellphone, taking great joy in harassing whatever friend of hers at what would have been an ungodly hour of the morning for most civilian people.

Judging from their reactions to the replies, the friend agreed.

"Send the other frog." Cass urged, gently nudging her friend's shoulder. Steph grinned deviously as she complied. There was a few seconds of quiet, then the screen lit up at the reply and both girls erupted into laughter.

Tim sighed and, curious despite himself, walked over to see what had them so enraptured.

"What's going on?" He asked, trying to Step around Cass and get a look at the phone as well, before he'd gotten more than a glimpse, Steph pulled back and Cass wedged herself between them.

"Never touch teenage girls phone Tim." Cass said, holding up one sagely finger.

"Yeah Tim, it's very personal, and private, and stuff." Steph's serious tone of voice was seriously at odds when the phone went off again and both them hurriedly bent over to read the very private text message.

Tim let out a huff, throwing up his arms in exasperation.

"Girl stuff." Cass gave his head a few patronizing pats, prompting another laugh from Steph, who went on to tuck behind her one of the hairs that had fallen from the loose bun at the back of her head.

The loose bun that was kept in place by an ornate, expensive looking hair stick. His eyes narrowed minutely at the new information, and he looked at the way the girls were focused on the phone again, picking out replies together, the way her face lit up when the message tone chimed.

He blinked up at them in silence for a few seconds, before Cass noticed and sent him a questioning look. Tim just shook his head and dropped back into his seat.

He'd been mostly pleasantly surprised when Steph had been the first one to bounce back after they'd lost Jason at Arkham, seeing as she'd arguably put the most effort into finding him. He'd chalked it up to her not spending as much time around the rest of them as she used to, not letting their anxiety and borderline depression rub off on her.

Sure, having her avoiding him hadn't felt great, but he couldn't blame her for distancing herself from their ' _family_ ' drama. That didn't make her any less social, and she'd find other people to spend time with, other people that actually had the time and energy to keep up with her.

He picked up one of the battered books sitting off to the side of the computer console, the books filled with notes that every adult member of their team had taken to reading religiously whenever they had the time.

Tim hadn't paged through them before, didn't want to see in them whatever the others did that made them so emotional, that made them grieve for someone they'd made no secret of having less than no fondness for before.

Tim fingered the pages, curiosity picking up a little at the little pieces of notes Jason had penciled in. Were they some kind of confession? Apology? A heartfelt attempt at poetry that would make Tim think Jason has been some kind of martyr?

Would it settle Tim deeper into the gloom that had swallowed his whole family?

Tim dropped the book back on top of the others, refusing to keep on thinking about it.

He wasn't going to pretend he had known Jason, that he was devastated at the loss beyond what he would have felt for anyone else in that situation.

Jason had made his choices, becoming a mass murderer, shooting a child and stabbing Tim through his chest with his own batarang when he'd gone to confront the man. Tim was under no obligation to forgive him, even if he found evidence that Jason in any way regretted those decisions.

And Tim shouldn't have to feel guilty for not being more upset that someone for who there was a very real possibility of doing something terrible to his family might have been gone.

Stephanie giggled again just as Tim tried to continue his typing and he heard the roar of the Batmobile entering the cave at speeds that weren't strictly safe. Dick and Damian's arguing was loud enough to reach the teens before they'd even come up the ramp.

"Welp, that's my cue to get outta here." Steph hopped up and shoved stuffed her phone into her pocket. "Bye Cass." She hugged the other girl and, who seemed disappointed to have lost her source of entertainment.

Tim looked away and was met with surprise when he felt her arms close around him from behind too.

"Don't brood too hard Tim." She gave him a blinding grin and a wave, then strolled off to her bike, speeding up when she passed Dick and Damian who were still shouting at each other about acceptable methods.

"That's not how ' _you'_ do it." Damian screeched in a tone that implied he'd repeated the same thing multiple times already. "We could have finished this even before they'd moved him from Arkham. Even _'Fatgirl'_ knew what was needed when she beat her way to that room."

"And put Jeremiah Arkham in a coma before we could get anything out of him." Dick said, getting a sharp flinch out of the boy. "What did you think would happen tonight Damian? That you'd actually get something out of that man? Charge in by yourself and find Jason on your own and what? You don't even…"

"I thought things would be normal again!" Damian shouted over Dick, his trembling fists balled tightly at his sides. "I thought if I found Todd, then Father would make an appearance at breakfast, and Pennyworth would cease reading those damn books and you would…" Damian turned away to hide his reddened face.

"Damian…" Dick reached for the child, but Damian sidestepped it and marched for the elevator.

Dick sighed and raked a hand through his hair before dropping into the nearest chair, the heavy bags under his eyes standing out even more under the harsh lighting of the computer monitors.

"You're not going after him?" Tim asked, and Dick jumped like he hadn't even realized they were in the cave.

"I'll give him some time to cool off before he has to look at me right now." Dick said, his head lolling back as he massaged the corners of his eyes.

"I'll go." Cass patted Dick's shoulder and walked passed him to the elevator.

Tim went back to typing listening as his brothers breathing slowly evened out and he was asleep. He'd just gotten up to find Dick a blanket to help him sleep better in the dampness of the cave when his cellphone vibrated in his pocket.

' _Steph: 4got homework. cn u put it away 4 me till 2morrow?'_

Tim draped a blanket over Dick before he gathered up the heavily edited pages she'd left scattered all over one of the forensic work surfaces when she and Cass had gotten distracted by her phone. The red-inked edits one of her friends had made in blocky letters covered just about every free inch of space, and Tim felt a rush of negativity again.

He looked up at the red helmet at the foot of Jason's case as he shoved the pages into a drawer.

' _This is all your fault_.' He accused it and went back to work besides his sleeping brother.

o

o

o

"What?" Jason didn't need to look up to know that she was staring at him again.

"Nothing." She grinned, wide and bright, and for some reason his lips curled up slightly in response. He gave his head a light shake and went to continue scrolling through the information of the tablet Talia had left him.

"Whazzat?" She leaned closer to be heard of the racket that was The Dive on a Saturday night, the heat of her body making the already warm air a little harder to pull into his lungs.

"Bounties." He angled the device so she could see the screen even though she likely wouldn't understand much of the script. "Checking if there's anything on me, can't believe people think this asshole is me, look." He showed a clip of the guy wearing what had been Jason's getup not too long again.

The man could barely shoot, walked like he'd watched too many action movies, and spoke like he was doing a bad robot impression. Jason shook his head at the image derisively.

"That bruise your big bad ego?" She asked, sneaking a fry from his plate and totally ignoring the one on her side of the table.

"Yes." He groaned and grabbed a couple of ' _her_ ' fries, he shoved them in his mouth and washed it down with his soda. "Look at that." He played another clip. "Please tell me your friends know better, or I'm gonna dig up my suit and…" She was staring at him again. "Okay, what the fuck is it now?"

"Sorry I uh, freaked out on you the other night." She toyed with the hem of her shirt as he spoke, and the motion of her hands distracted him from understanding what she meant right away.

He could almost feel the phantom tears soaking through his shirt and the warm weight in his arms as she slept.

"It's fine." He hurriedly turned to look out the window and brought a hand up to his face. "You keep all that crap bottled up and it screws with your head." She smirked sideways at her. "Trust me."

"Yeah?" She picked at another fry and chewed on the end, looking at his just out the corner of her eye. "So you're not mad?"

Jason scoffed and snatched the fry out of her hand. "Pissed that ya keep takin' my fries when you got a whole plate of your own." He pulled his plate towards him and shielded it from her reaching hands with his arm.

"Everyone knows stolen fries taste better", she tried to maneuver her hand around his arm, but he slid out of reach, then brought up a hand to her face to hold her off. "Share!"

"If I share they aint stolen." He pushed his fried to the opposite side of the table, where she usually sat so he could use both hands to keep her from twisting away and grabbing them. A bottle broke against the back of their booth and when he turned to flip the guy off, she managed to reach around him and grab a handful of fries.

"Victory!" she raised her prize into the air, then almost immediately let out a high bitched shout and ducked low to avoid another bottle that would have come just close enough to clip her had it hit.

Jason smother his laughter in his fist and she turned a glare on him that might have been more threatening if her scowl weren't quickly becoming a smile.

"Karma!" Jason took a fry. "S'what ya get for keeping me up all night."

"But Cass was having so much fun." She said it a tone that was meant to make her sound wistful, but set off an internal alarm in Jason that she was up to something.

"No." He said preemptively, picking up his tablet to continue scrolling through the refreshed feed of information.

"No what?" She threw up her hands and frowned at him.

"At whatever you were gonna ask."

"She's lonely in Hong Kong all by herself most of the time." She rested her chin in her palms and slanted her body towards him.

"Hey look, there're hits on Batgirl." He said, tapping on the tablet.

"Just so she can practice texting, I'm in school most of the time she's up." She brought her hands up in a praying gesture in front of her face. "And I gave her a fake name and everything."

Jason groaned and put the device down to scrub a hand over his face.

"You can just talk about memes and stuff, you love memes."

"I had nightmares about frogs, so thanks a whole fucking lot for that by the way."

"And she won't let anyone see, or anything, text friends are sacred you know." She blinked up at past her hands.

"Fine, but if I get sent to another nuthouse I'm blaming you." He drew his soda closer to take a sip but one of the arms she'd suddenly wrapped around his head obstructed his access.

"Thanks Jay." She half whispered, and he left her in place for a second before dislodging her.

He sipped at his soda and she went back to stealing his fries in, both of them deflecting the occasional projectile sent their way in silence for barely half a minute before she spoke again.

"So, there's really a hit on me?" She asked, leaning closer to look at the tablet.

"Couple really, but they're mostly small deal, no one's gonna risk crossing Knightbat on Elm Street for this kinda payday less they're desperate. Fucker had half the assassins on the planet thinking he's a paranormal…" One of the entries on the list caught his attention and he paused his scrolling. " Fuck it, this one's got me a little cons…" His eyes shifted from the tablet to her. "Stop that?"

"What?" She asked, gaze still locked on his face.

"That staring shit." He smoothed down his jacket. "You wanna look; you gotta at least buy me dinner first."

Her face reddened and she laughed nervously, covering her mouth with her hands then pressing her face into his bicep.

"No, you insulted these muscles; you don't get to hold them." He wiggled his arm out of her grip as her body shook with her chuckles.

"I said I was sorry." She threw her hear back against the plush lining of the booth.

"Sorry don't mean shit." He turned pointedly away from her and picked up his soda, finally getting the straw into his mouth. He should have expected something when she kept quiet until he'd actually gotten some of the drink into his mouth.

"So, does one card still get you shirtless?" She asked leaning into his field of vision, then ducking out when the soda he was drinking abruptly went the wrong way and made a u-turn right back through his mouth.

Jason coughed and sputtered, trying to catch his breath and ease the burning in his throat and nose while Stephanie pulled back to avoid the sticky mess.

"I'm sorry!" she laughed and slammed her hand down on his back then pushed her own soda up to him, foregoing the straw and pushing the rim of the glass against his mouth. "Here drink!"

"I don't want more of the stuff I'm choking on." He wheezed out and slid the glass away from him. "Shit, you're gonna kill me." He coughed a few more times and wiped the excess soda off his mouth, unable to get rid of the stickiness.

She was doubled over in laughter besides him, her face pressed into his back. "I'm taking that as a no then." She rubbed the tears from her eyes.

"Shut up." He threw an arm over his face, forcing her to move too.

She pillowed her face on the arms she'd folded across the table and continued laughing until she'd worn herself out. She let out a high-pitched sigh before she turned her grin on him again. "I love this."

"Yeah sure Sunshine." He shook his head smudged some of the soda that had spilled across the table on her face earning him an indignant shout when she lunged at him.

o

o

o

Bruce made it back to the cave just as the sun was peeking through the Gotham skyline, dripping on his way to the medbay. If he could have helped it, he would have been out longer, but he wasn't as young as he had been, and his bodies limits were growing more apparent every day.

He passed by the case, still with that damned helmet at the foot and the childish arrangement of skittles. Still, he paused, brushed his hand against the glass wincing at the bloody smudge he left behind before going on.

Stitches , three hours sleep and he'd head out again. There was no time for anything else when every second could potentially be his last chance.


	24. Rain

Say what you want about Gotham's service delivery, and, well everything else too, but she had herself some pretty big mail boxes.

Huge metal things on most corners of the older parts of the city, they were holdovers from the days when people had still sent mail and the thriving metropolis had needed that much space for all of it.

That wasn't an important fact, not something life changing or even minorly interesting, but it was a part of where it started.

If you were being technical, it really started when Cass and Steph had come upon a shipment at the docks on their obligatory girls night patrol. It had nothing at all to do with the bigger case all of them were caught up in.

Not drugs or kidnappings, just a certain type of alcohol that had some very… interesting effects on some people and was therefore banned in their good city. As with most illegal but not immediately damaging consumables, that only made it more popular and every bar from sleazy to the highest of high ends liked having some of it in stock.

Cass didn't think much of it, and neither did Steph until she turned up at The Dive the next day to find Jason standing morosely outside of the door, staring at an 'out of business' sign crafted out of an old beer crate and fixed to the door with masking tape.

"You've killed me." He said simply, leaning forward to rest his head against the door with a dull thunk that kind of sounded like it hurt, but Jason gave no indication either way.

Before she could ask him exactly what had happened, he was talking again, tilting his head so she could see just one of his teal eyes peeping out from the damp curls that had flopped across his forehead.

"Bats arrested the owner last night, fucker's too paranoid to give anyone else the key."

"Oooooh." Steph clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels. "So no more chili-fries, then? Yikes."

" H's got connections. 'll be out in like two months." Jason mumbled into the sign.

"Then why're you being all grouchy?" Steph took a step forward, wincing as her foot came down in a puddle and the filthy water sunk into her sneakers.

Jason turned around to rest his back against the door and raked a hand through his wet hair as he tilted his head back to look at the clouds that were still dropping rain on everything.

With not a trace of a smile and with his face as serious and blank as she'd ever seen it. "I'll starve to death before that." His voice rose a little at the end and a chuckle escaped Steph's lips before she could smother it behind her hands.

"You think it's funny?" He asked, mouth agape like she'd done the most offensive thing imaginable. "Do you know how much fuel it takes to maintain all of this?"He waved his hand in a gesture indicating his whole body before slumping against the door and hanging his head, bringing a hand to fist the fabric at his chest. "I'll waste away without this place, or have to live off…" He flopped a hand in circles near his head as he looked for the words, "cans of spam. Might as well crawl back into my grave now. "

"Are you done yet?" Steph asked in her Barbara voice, folding he arms across her chest and giving him the most unimpressed look she could muster.

Jason gasped and peered at her through his hair again, and if she was going to focus on anything he was saying, he was going to have to stop ' _doing_ ' that. "I can't believe this." He shook his head, something close to a pout on his lips. "This is all Bruce's fault."

"You can't blame Bruce for me and Cass…"

"I'm blaming him." Jason cut in.

"Come on Jay, I know this great waffle house." She wrapped one of her arms around his and tried to tug him out of the alley, but he didn't even budge.

"Won't make it to the waffle house, so weak." He whispered piteously.

"Poor baby." Steph patted his head, resisting her sudden urge to run her hand though the rain slicked curls, even more so when he leaned into her touch, determined to keep up his act. "I still have Talia's number; do you want me to call her to bring you a snack?" Steph paused, a thought striking her and drew her hand back. "Wait."

"So she can shut the place down for good and make me cook for myself?" Jason scoffed. "I really would rather die."

"That's why you like her so much." Steph brought her thumbnail between her teeth and she stared at him, trying to find the words she needed to string together to make sense of it.

"What?" Jason's face twisted into the look he got whenever she was getting close to something she could tease him about and they both knew it.

"She moms you." Steph said, a huge grin splitting across her face.

"No." Jason straightened, up and jabbed a finger sharply in her direction.

"She's like, totally your mom!"

"Come on; let's just hit the damned waffled house." He said, gently pulling her to the end of the alley.

Because Talia visited him in Arkham, and fed him, and brought him birthday gifts that he obviously loved, and scolded him for eating junk food and, ' _disproved of his life choices_ '. Everyone back at the cave was wracking their brains trying to figure out Jason's connection to Talia. Why she was going through so much trouble for him, what she'd do if she got a hold of him, when really it was just her weird, scary assassiny way of smothering him.

"And you're her precious little baby."

Before Steph knew it, she was laughing. Not so much because it was funny, but because she was more relieved than she would have thought she'd be when she figured it out. She still hated Talia, boy did she hate that woman, but it wasn't something she had to worry about getting Jason hurt anymore, and that lifted a layer of stress from her chest she hadn't even known she was carrying before.

"Are you done yet?" Jason didn't share the same sentiments at her revelation, and stood stiffly, frowning at her with his arms crossed.

"No." She laughed some more. This time because his reaction really ' _was_ ' funny, and also somewhat adorable.

"You got no clue how messed up that that idea is." Jason growled out at shifted his eyes somewhere past her.

"Bet she's where you learned to be all scary." Steph brought her hands up to make claws in front of her face and deepened her voice. Jason turned something that was maybe a version of the batglare on her until her laughter died down and she managed to straighten up, her hands clasped behind her back as she leaned towards him. "So which part of me are you gonna threaten to send to my mother in a box for this?"

"All of you." He lunged at her and before she could get out of the way, he'd lifted her off her feet. Cradling her tightly in his arms he carried her to the nearest of the big mailboxes that weren't even used anymore.

The people that hadn't – or couldn't, considering the part of town they were in – taken shelter in the pouring rain paid them no mind beyond a few weird looks, and Stephanie was laughing too hard to put up much of a struggle.

Nothing would have come of it otherwise, but it seemed it just wasn't their day when a police cruiser approached and it was –surprise of surprises – a cop that actually took his job seriously.

The cruiser slowed down just as she was doing a very good impression of a cat, and Jason the kid trying to push it into a bathtub. Her feet were propped on the edges of the box and he held her with both arms around her midsection, twisting her from side to side trying to get one of those legs inside.

"Keep moving." Jason said as the cop came to a halt besides him before the cop a chance to do more than open his mouth. "This doesn't concern you."

Jason pulled her back and finally managed to get one of her legs into the mailbox when the incredulous expression on the cop's face almost got another bout of laughter out of her.

"You can't say that to a real cop." Steph whispered harshly and more than loud enough for the cop to hear as she kicked her leg, trying to dislodge it from the metal box

"But it doesn't." Jason's voice was so earnest, his eyes so wide with innocence she might have even believed it at one point, if she didn't know him and he hadn't twisted her right them to get her other leg into the mailbox.

"My friend's just being an asshole officer." Steph tried to give the officer an apologetic look, because it was obvious she was going to have to be the serious one in that situation. She yelped when her shirt rode up just an inch and the cold metal of the box brushed against the small of her back.

"Now when you get in there, check if there's an old ass letter with a stamp and…"

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the young lady." The cop was stepping out of the car now, gun drawn.

The blank stare Jason gave him was supremely unimpressed and his arms wrapped minutely tighter around Steph's midsection. He was warm, Steph realized, even soaking wet while she shivered in the rain.

"Yeah, put me down Jay." Steph said, even as she leaned into his warmth and kinda wished he'd keep him hands where they were.

She knew immediately she's made a mistake when he grinned, the rain bringing out the color in his eyes and making a mess of his hair made his grin more impish that it would have been otherwise.

"Okay." He pulled her out of the mailbox and dropped her.

She let out a high-pitched squeaking sound at the cold shock of the puddle she splashed into. Jason smiled at the cop – who looked at both Steph and Jay like he thought they were either drunk or high – and clasped his hands behind his back in mimicry of Steph's earlier pose.

"She wouldn't visit her poor old mother." He said. "I was trying to help."

The cop rolled his eyes and finally put away his gun. "You kids… just get where you're going and don't cause any trouble."

"Too bad you can't arrest people for being assholes." Steph grumbled, and curled up a little at the derisive look the cop sent her.

After a moment of deliberation, Jason bent a little to help her up. She accepted his hand, but tugged harshly just as he was about to pull her up.

His landing besides her in the gutter splashed her with more water as well, but the shock in his face made it worth it.

She chuckled into her fist and he buried his laughter into his hands.

The staff wouldn't let them into the waffle house, soaked through with both rain and gutter water as they were, and they were forced to find another source of lunch.

Jason did, in fact, survive the journey to the food truck near Gotham U and they ended up in a sheltered awning on her college campus with polystyrene containers of popcorn chicken. She got s few nods from people who knew her, but no one bothered them.

He did jump about three feet into the air when she sneezed though.

"I really hope we don't get sick." She sniffled.

Jason scoffed and took a bite of his food. "I don't ' _get_ ' sick."

O

O

O

Jason was going to have to change his ring tone really fucking soon, to something that was the complete opposite of the screeching noises emitted whenever the thing went off. They'd been fine when the thing had been used so infrequently he forgot he even had it someday, but if it ever went off while he was sleeping again he was going to end up using one of the burners and fuck those things with their tiny little buttons and even more annoying ringtones.

He buried his face deeper into his pillow and blindly reached for the device so he could shut it up before his brain oozed out of his ears.

The nap had seemed like a good idea at the time, when he'd been full and warm and freshly showered and his bed had been right there, but something had set in while he slept, fogged up his head and stuffed up his nose and had his chest making an uncomfortable rattling sound whenever he took in a breath. Nothing some tea shouldn't have been able to fix, but still.

Five hours, he noted when he finally found the phone and got a look at the screen, and he still hadn't gone through the folder he'd found taped to his door, meaning he'd be listening to that ring tone again long before wanted to.

"Yeah." He pressed the phone against his ear as he rolled off his bed, surprised at how much the itch in his throat intensified when he spoke. He padded over to his kitchenette to put his kettle on.

"Hey, would you be able to tell on your hit list thing if someone was gonna try and get at the Commissioner?" Blondie said, on the other side, her voice tight and nervous as the sound of boiling water filled his apartment.

"Yeah, gimme a sec." Jason yawned and glanced around for the tablet, he found it on his coffee table and dropped onto the sofa while he typed in his codes and brought up his info on the commissioner. "Nothing aside from the usual, less than the usual actually."

He didn't have to ask what it was about, she was already rambling at him and he took a second to wonder if she'd gone to bed at all after they'd parted.

She gave a breathy sigh. "Sorry I woke you up, it's just, Babs was really worried, cause her dad you know, if it was my mom I'd be super worried, and everyone was up all night, well and day watching him as if they're not running themselves ragged enough, and I figured you'd know, so I'd just ask, but why would ' _Talia_ ' send death threats before she had someone killed, I mean…"

To make them expect the wrong thing and be too tires to deal with the actual threat was why.

It took Jason a couple of seconds listening to her voice before his brain caught up to what she was actually saying. "Wait, why would you think it was Talia after him?" Talia didn't care about Gotham's police system, never had and he found it unlikely she start anytime soon.

"Huh, cause of the uh, the Arkham thing."She sniffled. "He was the arresting officer and stuff." There was a shuffling sound as she moved her phone around. "Wait, you didn't know that?"

"But Dick brought me in." At least, that was what his vague, not completely trustworthy memories of the even told him.

"Yeah but, they can't exactly put ' _Batman_ ' on the arrest report." Her voice trembled a bit and he dug deeper into the information he had on the commissioner according to more than just Gotham's underworld. "Jay what's wrong?"

Nothing more. There really were too little people out for his blood right then, way fewer than there'd been a few months ago, and that usually meant someone with a lot of pull didn't want anyone going after him. The reasons for that weren't often altruistic. Jason looked back at the envelope that might have kept him busy for hours if he hadn't gotten her call.

"Damnit." He tossed the tablet and leaped to his feet fast enough to make him dizzy for a second he really didn't have. "Where's he now?" Jason asked, tucking the phone between his head and shoulder as he dragged the duffle bag out from under his bed.

"At a safehouse, you know, police protocol and stuff, he's got some guards and stuff while the others…"

Fuck, the GCPD's idea of a safehouse was a house in a quiet neighborhood and a handful of bodyguards. Less innocent civilians to worry about underfoot, it was fine for run of the mill crazies, not so much for big league assassins with back doors into their systems.

People who knew exactly where and when to strike before to deal the most damage. People like Talia.

"Where?" Jason pressed, brushing his fingers across the camo printed fabric of the bodysuit while she rattled off an address. He pushed the suit away and went instead for the knives beneath. "Listen." He flung open his closet and pulled out some of the heavier duty clothes he owned. "Call the bats and tell them to hurry their asses there."

"What are you gonna do?" She swallowed.

"They won't make it in time." He hung up on her the same time his kettle finally clicked off.

There wasn't any time for tea.

O

O

O

Steph spent half a minute after she heard the dial tone just staring at her cellphone screen before she actually made the call.

It was still daytime, the part of daytime where the others were either at word or resting up before patrol, whoever responded would take a while to suit up first, they'd have to go first from wherever they were to the cave, get out of whatever they were doing if they had jobs.

That Jason probably knew that finally got her fishing out her comm and calling up Babs.

Leslie was going to kill her for not getting the even the least of the bed rest she been recommended, but still Steph was suiting up even as she explained the situation to Barbara, and suggested the birds of prey instead of the bats. They were more used to working in the daytime, and maybe wouldn't be as likely to recognize Jason right away.

He wouldn't have gone in if there was a huge risk of him being caught, right? Probably wasn't even going to Gordon's actual location. So even if the bats got there before he was out, it'd be okay, right?

That idea was dashed against the metaphorical rocks in the metaphorical sea that was her blood pressure the second the quaint little house came into sight.

More specifically the mess of twisted metal that might have once been a motorcycle and a very nice sedan topped with a felled streetlight.

That there were no people gathered around the crash site was all the confirmation they needed that something else was happening nearby. Gothamites generally had a sort of sixth sense for such things and also the common sense to stay away until they were sure it was over.

Steph flanked Dinah along with Helena as they approached a front door that had been kicked in with enough force to kick the thing in half.

"Don't know about you, but in my experience assassins don't usually go for the flashy entrance." Dinah frowned at the entrance.

' _Unless they're good enough for it not to matter_.' The digital distortion in Bab's voice hid any feelings Bab's must have been feeling right then and Steph remembered that they were dealing with what might have been her mentors murder scene right then. ' _Be careful._ '

Steph swallowed and followed after the two other heroes, trying to not think too closely about what it meant if they were too late because of her.

She thought she heard the distant shrieking of a siren, but didn't get the chance to care before Dinah broke away from them to rush for the pair of cops in the kitchen. The blood almost had Steph pulling away for the second it took Dinah to reach them.

One kneeling beside the other, pressing a wad of bandages against his unconscious partners crimson soaked chest. He looked up at the women approaching him with wide, relieved eyes.

"Upstairs." He said before they could ask anything. "He said, said to keep the pressure till they get here." He made a choking sound and pressed down a little harder.

Dinah nodded at the others and they both moved quickly for the staircase their field leader's voice fading in the distance. The comm's stayed silent.

The first thing Steph and Helena noticed when they reached the landing was the blood streaked all along the pale, yellowish wall of the hallway, then the ominous banging coming from the room on the farthest edge.

"Like a freaking horror movie." Helena shook her head, lips curled up in a grimace as she stalked on.

Steph again followed, almost terrified of what they find. The pool of blood dripping off an end table in one of the rooms they passed by didn't help matters, the bullet holes peppering another door they didn't have to open helped even less.

Thankfully, the powder blue walls of the bedroom only had one small platter of red that was immediately obvious. Overturned in a corner was the oak closet all the banging was coming from.

"Commissioner?" Steph called, ignoring Helena's whisperings about horror movies.

"Get me out of this damned thing!" Steph would have almost sworn she heard a sob on the other end of her comm when the commissioner's voice rang out.

The girl was there a second later; between her, Helena and a burst of sudden adrenaline, they finally managed to turn the closet back over. Steph didn't even take a second looking for a key. She produce a gooperang and hacked the lock away to get the doors open, revealing a very disheveled, disgruntled, probably dis-a lot of things with a gash leaking blood down across his eyes.

"Are you okay?" Helena asked hands raised to catch him if the answer was a negative.

"Need a cigarette." He stumbled out of the closet to rest against the wall and squinted his eyes at them in a manner that suggested he had at the very least a minor concussion.

"Otherwise okay, right?" Steph piped up and almost immediately regretted it when a draft blew some of the smoke down her throat and broke into a bout of coughing. Helena reached for her but Steph just waved her hand and back away. It was bad enough she was sick, didn't need anyone drawing more attention to it.

The commissioner shot her an incredulous look that prompter a weird distorted laugh from the comms that almost sounded more like crying, almost. ' _He's okay, he's…_ ' The comm's clicked off before Steph heard whatever else Bab's said. Nobody commented on it.

"Ha!" Helena held up a crumpled bag of cigarettes she's dug up somewhere in the room and offered then to the commissioner along with one of her flares. "Think you can tell us what happened here?"

"Ninjas." He shook his head, almost dropping the cigarette he had dangling from his lips. "Almost makes you nostalgic for the times you only had the mob to worry about." He flinched back from the wide flame produced from the flare, but quickly decided he didn't care and used it to light his cigarette anyway.

"So ninjas broke in, stabbed a cop, then called an ambulance and locked you inside a closet?" Helena frowned down at him.

"Thought that was one of you." He took a deep pull of smoke. "Turned to look at the wreck outside and he was already breaking down the door, then all hell broke loose, the men downstairs…" He paused to give them a questioning look.

"Alive." Helena said, jabbing at the sounds of the approaching ambulance.

Gordon nodded again. "Like I said, thought he was one of yours didn't get much of a look before he dragged me in here and locked the door. Heard plenty, was cursing up a storm at someone on the other end of a phone, coughing a little, don't know if it was him or the others, but someone was getting their asses handed to them."

Dinah showed up at the door. "Ambulance is here. Commissioner?" She inclined her head.

"Should make sure I'm not bleeding somewhere I can't see." Gordon sighed and limped for the door.

They moved after him, close enough to keep an eye out for any lingering assailants, but far enough away that he couldn't hear them.

"Whoever it was, he was good." Dinah whispered. "I gather the assassins were Society from the cop's description of their uniforms."

Helena made an angry hissing sound, but Steph just frowned.

"Society?"

"Oh right you weren't… ", Helena waved her hand in circles, "around right around then."

"Society of Supervillians, the other side's go at starting up a Justice League." Dinah explained.

"The bastards that blew up Bludhaven, wouldn't have though anyone'd be stupid enough to try and give them a comeback." Helena looked about ready to beat hit something.

"Talia, huh?" Steph tried to keep her voice even. That had to be who Jason had been yelling at on the phone, but had she listened, called them off? It made sense if that was why there weren't any assassins jumping out from the shadows or bleeding to death in the bushes. But what could he have said that made her listen, what could he have offered?

O

O

O

She head was still tied up in those thoughts when she showed up at the Clock Tower for the whole debriefing part of the mission. There had been a time, she remembered, when she'd found that part of the vigilante thing ' _cool_ ', like she was a cop, or a soldier in those action movies she used to watch when she was a kid.

What she liked even less than the overly long debriefing, was that it had carried on long enough for her mind to drift off from Helena threatening violence if she was asked the same question again.

Cass, being Cass, noticed and also noticed the minor cold Steph had been doing an okay job of ignoring untill then.

For the first time since becoming Batgirl, people who routinely ignored their own broke bones had banned Steph from patrol for a simple and relatively manageable illness.

Alfred, brought over by Cass, made Stephanie drink a spoon of something that was almost too bitter for words, then had Tim drive her home in one of the less fancy – still very fancy though – cars sitting in the manor's garage.

She came very close to sulking on the drive, but it was kind of nice to have a night off, and she ' _did_ ' need to check in on Jason and make sure he was okay beyond the short string of texts Cass had proudly showed off earlier in the night.

Speaking of nights off.

"You know, you could use break too." Steph said, turning from the scenery passing by them to her driver.

"I'll take a break when this is all over." Tim said, taking the chance to scrub a hand over his eyes when they came to a red light. "We'll all need a rest, and you know they won't anytime soon, so i might as well keep going too."

"Then you can all collapse at once." She said, tracing the condensation on the window.

"The idea's to get this done before _'anyone'_ collapses."

Steph frowned at her friend, trying to come up with an argument he'd actually consider, but her eyes shifted to something sitting on the dashboard. ' _Crime and Punishment'_ , one of the secondhand books she'd given Jason.

"Isn't there, like a protocol against taking evidence out of the cave?" Steph asked, waving a hand at the book.

"Hm." Tim blinked at her before his eyes shifted to the book and then back to the road. "Yeah, this is one of Alfred's cars though, and he _'likes'_ reading them." Tim sounded a little angry, but brushed he emotion aside quickly enough. "You know the normal rules don't really apply to him." He sighed. "I really wish he wouldn't."

"Why?" Steph leaned her head against the window. "It's just a book."

"Just, it's not helping anyone, them all obsessing over ' _him_ ' like that, you don't have to deal with it as much, but…" he grumbled something under his breath. "I just wish none of this had happened."

"Yeah." Steph picked the book up and turned it over in her hands, tempted to peer inside at what Jason had scribbled in the margins. It wasn't like she didn't know the kinds of things he wrote, her essays and college textbooks were proof enough of that, but his own books felt more personal somehow.

They arrived at Steph's apartment building not long after that and she was already out the car before Tim reminded her that she was still holding on to the book.

"They'll kill me if I lose that thing." He said apologetically if somewhat dismissively and Steph felt her face quickly burning up.

"Sorry." She thrust the book back at the car a little too fast and Tim's hand was just a little too slow in grabbing hold of it.

Steph felt a sort of fascinated horror for a splits second before his hand shot out and grabbed one edge of the book just before it could meet the water in the gutters. He almost looked a little disappointed.

"It's fine." He let out a breath and held it in place for a second, his face going through an array of emotions that passed by before she could place them. He pulled the now open book up by the corner he had pinched between his thumb and forefinger, brought it up to settle a little close to his too wide eyes before he looked back up to Stephanie with something close to shock.

"Good things you've got mad ninja skills, huh?" Steph said, stepping away from the car.

"Yeah." Tim looked between her and the book before he cleared his throat and got both hands in his steering wheel. "Yeah, I gotta go, I'll uh, see you tomorrow Stephanie."

"Bye." She waved awkwardly as he left, then looked up at the apartment building housing her warm bed and throat sweets, before stepping back to the curb and hailing a taxi.

O

O

O

"Is this gonna be a regular thing now?" Jason sniffled as he swung open his door and stalked back inside without closing it again, his heavy combat boots still making less noise than they should have. He was still dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt, but looked like he'd been asleep.

"Are you okay?" Steph shut the door behind her.

"No." Jason dropped onto his couch and flung an arm over his eyes. "You gave me your germs." Steph chuckled but it turned into coughing again and he raised his arm just enough to peer at her. "You seriously go Batgirling like that?"

Steph shrugged and stepped over the discarded hoody and motorcycle helmet to went to kneel by the couch. "Look who's talking." She rested her head against his chest. "I was worried they were gonna catch you there. You wanna dazzle me with the details of your daring rescue escape combo?"

"Daring." His huff turned into a cough. "Stupid. They find me now it'll be my own fault." The arm that wasn't on shielding his face moved to play with the tips of her hair.

"Babs was so scared." She said, leaning closer to him and finding that her clogged nose could still kinda pick out the familiar scents clinging to him, sweat and cinnamon, and now gunpowder and blood as well. It shouldn't have made her feel as secure as it did. "Don't think it'd be so bad if she found you right now."

"Yeah, maybe she'd get me a window cell this time." Jason scoffed. "Or a picture of a window at least."

"Not like that." Steph sighed and lifted her head so she could actually look at him. "You just saved her Dad's life, maybe…"

"Maybe what?" He sat up too, his relaxed posture gone. "Maybe I get a touching thank you card and we meet up for coffee where we decide to forget about the past five years and become bestest friends. And hey, maybe the rest of the Bat's show up too and welcome me back with open arms and we all pretend like nothing happened and live happily ever after." He rested his cheek on his clasped hands and fluttered his eyelashes.

Steph kept her face carefully neutral and relocated herself to the space that had opened up on the couch. "Well, _I_ would still be your bestest friend, because I'm greedy like that, but otherwise you hit it pretty much on the nail."

Jason let out a bark of rough laughter and stretched out his arms. "No offense to your friends Sunshine, but I'd prefer a couple milligrams of cyanide." He said with a yawn. "That all you came here for?"

"Asshole." She jabbed him with her elbow. "I came cause I was worried about you." She sagged deeper into the plush cushions of her couch, feeling the ache in her muscles more than she had since she'd woken up with her cold.

"They're all really worried about you too you know." She absentmindedly ran a fingertip along his forearm, down to his wrist where she could still see the scars from his time in Arkham's basement. "They think those… They think you're one of the people in those rooms we keep finding. That you're in a ditch somewhere or still being pumped full of…" She pressed her forehead against his arm, suddenly feeling sick in a way that had nothing to do with her cold she chuckled mirthlessly. "I used to break into the Batcave, and now I can't stand the place."

"Yeah well hopefully they'll give themselves severe stress ulcers and the villainous psychopath of the week will have a boxer gimmick and punch them all really hard in their guts."Jason said, his lips curled into something cold and dark she hadn't seen from him since that white room what felt like years ago. "Then none of them have to worry about anything anymore and neither of us will have to worry about them."

"Why do you hate them so much?" Steph said. "I mean… I get it, that place was… horrible, and it…" she took in a deep breath, when she thought of that rat faced doctor again, "It was so, so horrible, but hey really didn't know, and, and it…"

"I don't… I don't hate them, I just really don't give a fuck anymore." he pulled his arm away from her and raked it through his hair with a sigh, his whole body practically screaming exhaustion before he stood up. "Can we talk about something else?" He asked, halfway to his kitchen already.

"Jay I just…" She stared at the palms of her hands helplessly. "I just don't get how things got so bad. I saw this picture of you… before." The image brought a little smile to her face and just a hint of warmth to her chest. "And you were so tiny Jay, and happy, and… Do you think if they hadn't…"

"It's not about Arkham." Jason's arms were braced on his countertop, his head hanging low between shoulder that were shaking with whatever emotion made his next words so intense. "It's got less than a damn to do with what went down in that hellhole. What, they think because they saw a couple tapes they know less than nothing about it gives them the right to…" He pressed a fist to his mouth a breathed a deep, shuddering breath.

"Jay, you don't have to…" She got up off the bench, one of her hands reaching for him, but he held out one of his own, cutting her off.

"Because I was the bad robin, the reckless robin, the stupid robin who didn't know what the duck he was doing and got himself killed for it, had it coming." He spoke in a mocking, high-pitched tone that didn't match his stance at all.

"They took everything good I ever did and pretended it never happened. All the hell I raised when I came back… The kid I was when I was Robin, he was a good kid, he, he didn't deserve to die. He wanted to help someone, and she sold him out, and it was stupid and maybe I ' _was_ ' stupid, but if I had to go back I'd do it again because it was right, and he was good and he didn't deserve to be paved over in favor of this idea they made up to make themselves feel less guilty." His breath hitched and he turned angrily away from her, grabbing the kettle and taking it over to the sink.

"So I'm sorry, Stephanie if I don't give a crap about their guilt. What crawled out of that grave, they deserve to hate it." He shoved the kettle under the running faucet." They can keep trying to chain me down, or shut me up, or fucking end me for all I care, and I don't. I've stopped giving a fuck and they don't get to pretend they do..." The kettle had already filled up, but Jason didn't remove it from under the stream of water, he just stood there, watching it spill over the rim and flow down the drain.

"Jay." She reached over around him to shut off the faucet, unsure of what else she could have done, if there even was anything she could do."

"They don't get to pretend they do because they found some recordings they don't know the first damn thing about." He rested his elbows on the countertop and buried his face in his hands, sagging against the solid surface as if someone had cut the imaginary strings holding him up. "They don't get to feel guilty and pretend they want any part of me back, that they think there's anything good enough left to love, right when I finally stopped wanting it."

Steph didn't think about it, just like she was starting to notice she didn't really think about a lot of the things she did when she was with him, she just snaked her arms around his broad chest from behind, and held onto him as tight as she could.

"You are good Jason." She whispered it like it was some secret he didn't want anyone else to know." You're still good. You're so, so good." He sniffed and she pretended it was the cold, tightening her hold in response. "There's so much good in you, even if you don't think so, and you know I…" She caught herself before she could finish a sentence she suddenly, startlingly realized would have been painfully true.

She caught herself because she knew that no matter how true it was, it wasn't what he needed right then.

"I'm not in Gotham for them." Jason covertly brushed his arms against his eyes before he turned around, without completely breaking away from the arms wrapped around him to face her. "I didn't stay here for them." He cupped the side of her head in one hand, the calloused pads of his fingers brushing against the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck. "Why do they have to matter? Can't I just… be here for _you_?"He gave a tired sigh and rested his head against hers.

She stood in silence for a while, absorbed in warmth radiating from his body, the prickly feeling on his thumb against her cheek, how every breath he released blew softly against the back of her head.

"Jay," She forced herself to pull her head back, break the close contact so she could think, but is was even harder when she had those eyes looking down on her, his lips tilted down at the sides just ever so slightly, so close to her own.

She tried to imagine again what would have happened if she'd made that call when she'd first found him, if she'd never decided to start her visits in the first place. In none of those imaginings did she get the chance to tease him about stupid, mundane things, or spend so many hours in the rain they were both stuck with colds, or hang out in a seedy bar that still served them milkshakes and burgers for some reason. She didn't want to imagine ' _any_ ' of those things not being part of her life.

"I'm really glad you're here at all." Her hands gripped the cloth at the back of his shirt and she ducked her face against his chest, felt his arms wrap more securely around her waist. "It's enough that you're here."

After all of that, how could telling him how much she loved him be interpreted as anything other than some kind of manipulation?

 **Pretty sure this was the hardest chapter for me to write so far, but nothing else was working.**


	25. Over

She'd thought there was something in the air. Gotham City, being Gotham City, that was well within the realms of possibility, but she'd checked and there'd been nothing but the usual smog that permeated the place.

No fear gas, or Joker venom, or poisonous spores being carried by the wind to explain why Stephanie felt as if some ghostly thing had taken a fork and twisted up her insides like spaghetti. Like there was a vice around her heart squeezing so tightly she was surprised she hadn't had a heart attack yet.

It was irrational, and stupid, and like she'd been encouraged when it came to irrational, stupid things, she did her best to ignore it all throughout the time she spent getting ready for patrol.

Paying anything less than her full attention on patrol was a sure way to get hurt, or killed, or worse. It should have been the perfect thing to pull her out of her head, get her focusing on the real world again.

Get her to stop thinking that the last time she'd felt that way she'd been standing on a rooftop watching the massacre of just about every notable crime boss in Gotham. All because she'd been stupid enough to think she'd known what she was doing.

The start of her patrol was offset by dread lodged deep in her bones, two hours in it had sunk into her molecules, sunk to the point she found herself curled up on a fire escape in the darkest alley she could find with her comms switched off so that no one saw ' _Batgirl_ ' having a fucking panic attack.

Moisture around her eyes made her cowl itch, the suit was constricting around her so tightly she couldn't breathe, and the bat on her chest might as well have been burning a brand into her flesh.

Going out on patrol had been a terrible idea. She was just begging to realize exactly how much of a terrible idea it had been when there was a scrape below her from something that ' _should not'_ have gotten that close without her noticing.

"Batgirl?"

She spun to face the threat, a pair of gooperangs on hand.

"Oh, Baker?" She peered down at the man on the ground. "Whoa, what happened to your face?" She dropped down from her perch to get a better look at the Arkham guard, who was now prodding at the mottled purple and green bruise that was his face. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"I-I quit, my j-job at Arkham." His finger poked at a particularly dark bruise and he winced, dropping the hand. "Could, couldn't stay on after wh-what they did to your… I'm sorry. If I, if I knew what… I would have told you…"

"Oh yeah?" Steph slowly, so he didn't think she was going to attack him or something, put away her gooperangs. She really hoped there weren't any tears on her cheeks. "Thanks for that, I guess. You, want me to deal with the guys who…" she waved her hand at his face, eyes drifting down to where the bruises disappeared into the fabric of his rain coat.

"No." He shook his head, a hand stopping just short at poking the bruising again. "It was worth… I mean. N-not everyone hated..." He sighed. "There were some of us, who, who appreciated what y-your brother was trying to do and… I couldn't say anything when I w-worked there, but now…" For the first time since the conversation started, he met her eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the tunnels. Batgirl."

"Thanks Jeff, really." Steph wanted to say more, maybe about how Jason would have appreciated that, or that it wasn't Bakers fault they hadn't been on time, but she'd gotten tired of making up stories about Jason.

Lying to the bats everyday was enough, she didn't need to add some random civilian to the list. It didn't matter anyway.

A minute later, he was gone, and she was standing alone in the alley.

"Oracle?" She clicked on her comm and spoke before Bab's could berate her for turning the thing off in the first place. "I guess I'm not over that cold yet, I'm gonna head home." She sniffled and hoped it sounded like it ' _was_ ' because of a cold and not her messed up emotions.

Babs sighed, a warped static filled sound. ' _Stay put, I'll send someone to escort you…'_

"No I'm fine, don't wanna infect them." Steph forced a chuckle. "We're all understaffed as it is right? I'll be fine on my own."

The last thing she wanted to be was on her own.

O

O

O

There was some cartoon playing on Stephanie's laptop, perched precariously atop a stack of textbooks and an old rickety chair. Jason wasn't paying attention to either the muted sounds or colorful pictures.

He was listening to the rain pattering against the window. Only a light drizzle right then, but still seemingly ever present since it had started up what felt forever ago. She was next to him, her face gloomy as the weather outside, as it had been since he'd arrived after getting high pitched near inaudible call to come over. 'To catch up on some of the pop culture he'd missed.'

He missed the sunshine.

A distant rumble of thunder echoed somewhere in the grey mass of clouds, threatening the break of another storm, and she squirmed her way somehow closer to him, a hand snaking out to loosely grip the edge of his shirt.

The blanket she'd had thrown over her legs slipped down and his arm shot out to catch the edge of it before it could fall to the ground. Her apartment was cold enough as it was, and she'd just gotten over a cold, and he didn't want to be stuck dragging her back to a clinic if she developed something worse.

Unlike when he'd fist gotten a look at the scars littered across her legs, usually covered by long jeans or leggings, his breath didn't catch in his throat. Still, he tensed up enough to have her angling her face up at him; he looked pointedly at the singing trolls instead.

It didn't help him forget the purplish marks, smaller than he would have thought they'd have been, but placed to hurt, and more than could have ever been necessary. It didn't do anything to hide the raised marks he'd felt under his hands when she'd hugged him.

"What, you don't wanna rewatch any of these songs?" Her voice filled up the silence, drew him out of his thoughts.

"Not as catchy as the last one." He scooped up some of the popcorn from the bowl that had started out between them but migrated to his lap little by little, as she'd taken its place. "Kind of boring."

"Well I'm sorry Disney doesn't meet your minimum requirement of explosions per movie." She said with a yawn, stretching out her arms and legs leisurely. "We can watch the pirate ones later."

"Those explosions are a fucking joke; wooden barrels aint got the pressure for old timey gun powder to do that." Jason scoffed at the little spark of annoyance in her eyes. It might not have been very bright, but it was better than the blankness of before. "Sides, if I wanted an explosion I'd just blow up a meth lab. You got any idea how C4 I got laying around?"

"Oooooh, sorry mister demolitions expert," she waved her hands in front of them, "for offending your expert full expertise with my ignorant ignorance."

"I could teach you some stuff." Jason said, a grin forming on his face. "I got the perfect target for us to practice…"

"Jay, we're not blowing up a meth lab!" She crossed her arms and fixed him with a serious glower, the effect of which was somewhat ruined by how little of her face he could actually see with how close it was to his.

"You know you want to." Jason shoved another hand full of popcorn into his mouth, and if she whispered an affirmative under her breath, he pretended not to notice. He could blow it up on his own some other time. "Nothing else we can do in this weather."

"I'm pretty sure we offended some deity that night we went to the planetarium and didn't make any sacrifices." She chuckled, then sighed. "Bet it's flooded by now."

"You grab Tim and I'll get us a Lazarus pit for after." Jason smirked down at her affronted expression.

"We're not sacrificing one of my best friends Jason." She batted her fist sluggishly against his chest, nowhere near hard enough to hurt just as some more thunder rolled in the background. "Why don't we sacrifice one of ' _your_ ' friends?"

"Cause I don't feel like hauling you off this lumpy ass couch." He let himself relax a little into the thin cushions at his back. "Sides, we'd bring him back after."

She snorted and shifted so she was slumped against his chest and the conversation died down.

They stayed like that until the credits were rolling and his head was dropping slowly to the side, eyes sliding closed despite his halfhearted attempts to keep them open. Though he tried to keep his working hours in the daytime, the assassins he was tracking were mainly nocturnal, and his surveillance had him spending almost as much time awake at night as his work controlling the criminal elements once had.

Going by her deep breaths, he'd thought she was already asleep, but just as he was dropping into a light doze, the spoke again.

"What was it like?"

"What?" He mumbled back, very aware of the cool strands of hair brushing against his cheek.

"Dying?"

Jason stiffened, any traces of lethargy slipping from his body and vanishing without a trace.

"Fucking hell, you gotta ask the hard ones huh?" He caught the dark laughter before it could slip out, but he was sure some of it carried over to his voice anyway.

"Sorry." She whispered softly, her hold on his shirt tightening minutely. "I just. I thought I was gonna die, y'know. After, after ' _he_ ' had me. There was the heart monitor, and Bruce was there, but still, I could. All I could really hear was that damn drill and I was terrified that was the last thing I'd ever hear, and you're so, how're you so 'okay' with blowing things up and fire and everything after everything and I still can't stand the sight of a fucking power tool. Like, I could always tell myself it could have been worse, that's what Leslie always said, and I was so grateful, but it couldn't have been any worse for you, and you're always joking about it, like it's nothing."

Jason swore under his breath and hesitantly wrapped an arm around her shaking shoulders, almost pulled her closer to him as though that would erase what had happened to her. He wanted to kick himself for half the jokes he'd made, even if she'd shown no signs of them bothering her before. More than that, he wanted to dump Roman Sionis in a fucking Lazarus pit so he could kill him few more times. Maybe send Catwoman some diamonds for kicking the bastard out of a window.

"Dying's not so bad." He whispered into her hair, coming back had been the part that fucked him up, the itching he could sometimes still feel at his throat, but he wasn't about to bring that up. "Being dead was, I don't remember much, but it wasn't so bad, really could have been worse. Got me to stop smoking at least. Wasn't the bomb that finished the job you know?" He swallowed down the bile that tried to rise up when he forced himself to remember. "Was the smoke after, maybe the fire, could hear him digging through the rubble, calling for me."

His hold on her tightened further, pulled her close enough that she was almost on his lap. "Know how you feel though." He licked his lips, hating how dry they felt. "I got a teacher after, explosives, taught me to more than make things go boom. Learned how to take 'em apart faster 'n you can blink. Practiced and practiced till I could disarm anything in my sleep, till I could promise myself it wouldn't happen again." He shrugged and let her go. "Till it was… fun."

"t's called immersion therapy I think. Leslie wanted me to try it 'n Africa." She hummed and he disentangled her hands from the very creased fabric at his chest so he could stand up.

"Get dressed; I'll be back for ya in a couple minutes." He said as he made for the door.

"Huh, why?" she asked straightening up and dropping her blanket to the ground.

"Immersion therapy." He searched her eyes for any resistance, but they lit up with understanding and she nodded. He opened the door just as the thunder outside saw fit to increase its volume. "Then we're having us a damn picnic." He added, in defiance of the approaching storm.

O

O

O

Jason came back in a very normal looking green car, tarps, planks and various other things spread over the back seats. She wasn't sure she wanted to ask where he'd gotten it, but she figured if it was stolen, it would have maybe been a little fancier and she didn't have to worry about it.

When she found a battered, heavily noted copy of some Russian book under her seat, she worried even less and instead started messing with the radio once she'd found the sub-total of two CDs both contained mostly songs that were probably all older than they were.

She took some time to tease him about his old man music and he was appropriately affronted, glaring at her over his dark sunglasses – darker than you'd ever really need in Gotham, much less when it was cloudy enough to feel like twilight. She didn't say anything about the glasses aloud though, or the heavy looking leather jacket, or the jeans that were maybe a little tighter than how he usually wore them. It was doubtful he'd appreciate her staring at his thighs.

It wasn't long before they were making a stop at a grocery store for the pre-packaged goodness that would be their lunch later in the day. Steph took longer than she should have deciding between jelly or chocolate filled marshmallows, cream or custard donuts; just about everything they got really. Jason didn't rush her or even hint at her to go faster, to stop stalling though he must have known that's what she was doing, not until they were staring at the cartons at the checkout counter. Then he couldn't wait to get out of there.

Not an hour later they were back at the broken down planetarium, having scaled the fence again, this time in the light rain and laden down with multiple bags that made Steph very glad for her vigilante training. Whoever said it was only useful for the nightlife?

The place was just as decrepit as it had been before, with its broken wall, overgrown greenery and of course the hole in the ceiling. Only now it had been flooded as well. There would be no laying in the grass this time around.

The first thing they did was get one of the tarps over the roof to block out the rain. Jason finished tying the thing down while Steph carried their snacks to the projection room, which was far enough from the openings that it was still dry and. It was also a lot cleaner than Steph would have thought it would be.

"Sunshine." Jason called from the where he stood at the broken down wall.

She didn't have to look to see what he was doing, having already lined up the planks, more than had been in the car, along the gaping hole in the wall. He didn't look worried, resting against a non-collapsed portion of the wall, waiting for her to approach with a pretzel stick between his teeth.

It was easier to focus on that, she thought, than the cordless power drill in his hand.

She didn't remember taking it from him, or moving to stand in front of the planks, but she the cold, hard plastic of the drill had already turned warm in her hands. There were already marks, little dots painted onto the wall where she was supposed to drill.

She pressed the drill bit against the mark, she knew enough about how the things worked to do that much, it took her a few minutes to gather the courage to do more than stare. She pressed, the trigger eventually, but froze up as soon as the high-pitched whirring sound, softer, but so much like the one she'd heard those days.

Instinctively she braced herself for pain, despite the fact that she was holding the thing, she was holding the drill and she wasn't going to turn it on herself. They'd talked about it; it was supposed to be easy. It felt like she was choking, and it shouldn't have, she was supposed to be over it already.

Suddenly there was something in her mouth and a presence behind her, she didn't spin around, or scream, but she did drop the drill.

There wasn't even time for her to feel relieved at not hearing the sound again when Jason reached around her to grab the tool before it could hit the ground.

"Not like that." He bit off the pretzel stick in his mouth and put another in hers, shaking his head in exasperation that would have almost seemed real if not for the deep line between his scrunched up brows. It had been a while since she'd seen that. "Both hands Sunshine." He gently pressed the drill into her hands, the tough leather at the cuffs of his jacket brushing her skin even through the thinner fabric of her sweater.

She almost tossed the thing away from her again, but his hands were covering hers, rough and calloused, but warm. Despite the chilly weather, all of him was still so warm.

"Breath a little, huh." He said a confident smirk on his face. She looked back at the wall, turned away from the wall before she had to know for sure whether it was genine. When she pressed herself a little more against him, he rested his chin against her head.

One, two, three deep breaths later, she pushed down on the trigger again. Jason was muttering in her ear. Nonsense strings of words that didn't really mean anything, maybe something about a book he'd read once, it didn't matter. The constant stream of words grounded her, reminded her that she wasn't strung up alone somewhere. Jason would have broken free of Black Mask, wouldn't he? He'd toyed with the crime lord for months when he'd come back to Gotham.

Steph had laughed at some of the audio logs Bruce had recovered of Jason's phone calls to the man.

The drill bit hit the wall. Steph didn't let go of the trigger. She felt the resistance, heard the increase of sound. The air smelled more strongly of dust, not blood, little particles were flung away from the wall as she drilled through the wood, through the wall.

Jason slipped past her, tightened a bolt with a tool that was significantly quieter than the drill, and she moved on to the next mark. Then the next, then the next, until there was a neat barricade over the hole and the wind couldn't touch them anymore.

"I feel like we're in a zombie game." Steph said looking at her handiwork, ' _Her_ ' handiwork, as she very carefully set the drill on one of the ruined chairs. "Let the hoards come," she narrowed her eyes, "we're ready for them."

Jason snorted and pulled the last bolt tight. "Lookit you, a regular Claire Redfeild." He stretched his arms out and wiggled his fingers. "Too bad you trapped yourself inside with the zombie." He slowly started shuffling towards her.

Steph laughed as she ducked under his arms to wrap her arms around his waist. With her face pressed into his chest, it was way easier to pretend she didn't notice when her chuckles switched to sobs.

"This isn't how you deal with zombies." One of Jason's hands rested at the back of her head, his own moving closer to her neck. "Ima bite you."

"Don't you dare." She warned, nudging his jacket aside so she could worm her head under the warm fabric. "Thanks Jay."

"When you don't expect iiiit." He whispered, pulling the jacket open so he could wrap it around her.

O

O

O

They laid down a blanket on the dry side of the planetarium, and Jason switched on the projector, which was thankfully still in working order. There was no view of the true sky past their stars, not like the last time, and the rain had gotten heavier while they were boarding the place up, so it lacked the quiet, but at least this time, there was no chance of the downpour chasing them off.

There was enough in the bags that they could feasibly spend the whole day there if nothing came up that required them to leave, but they weren't done with everything they'd come to do first.

Stephanie was the one who'd bought them, chosen the brand and skull covered lighter they'd brought along.

Just like when he'd been a kid, he slipped the cigarette between his lips clicked the lighter, brought up the flame. That's where it stopped though.

He couldn't bring himself to pull the smoke into his lungs. Oh, if the teachers who'd caught him smoking at school could see him now. Stephanie was rifling through the bags, digging up the bags of marshmallows.

He forced himself to suck on the bud of the cigarette, get the thing lit at least, but it refused, and after a while he'd charred too much of the smoke for it to be anywhere near, well, smokeable. He tossed it away in disgust and fished another out of the pack.

"This is why parents told their kids not to hang out with me in highschool." Stephanie took the smoke away from him and waved her hand expectantly for the lighter. "We'd have been so cool together."

"You think I was Mister Popular?" He huffed, watched her glossy lips pucker around the bud as she lit the cigarette, the flame of the lighter flickering against the projected stars passing across her face.

He hadn't even noticed she'd been wearing lip-gloss when he'd picked her up. The detail caught him oddly off guard, more so even than the stream of smoke passing from between those lips. Did she always wear lip-gloss?

"I did, till I heard you go on for hours about Hamlet. Now I'm thinking you probably got bullied."

She blew the smoke away from them and handed the cig back to him. Jason tried to pretend he had a good reason to be smoking, that he had to do it, and he could do anything he needed to do. It made it easy to breath in the smoke.

Harder was holding it deeply enough to count without coughing, trying to expel it before it reached his lungs. Images of red sparks in the dark, and air burning all along his skin invading his mind. Struggling to breathe while she cried softly somewhere out of his sight. Hot smoke invading his lungs every time he tried…

Stephanie tugged on his hand, bringing it closer to her mouth so she could take another pull of the smoke.

Jason watched her, almost captivated, watched the little bit of red light up, burn away more of the paper, shrink the size of the cigarette. Her hand was still around his wrist when he brought it up to his own lips.

"The only kids who did that, called me a square, nobody fucking talks like that anymore." He rolled his eyes, watching the smoke curl up and into the ceiling It had been a while since he 'd thought about school, waking up every morning to the breakfast spread from his alley kid dreams and climbing in the pine scented car with the essay he knew he was going to ace ready in his bag. "They were the squares." He took another pull of the and forcefully stamped down on his panic. "Wanted to join stage crew, but Bruce wouldn't let me."

"Yeah, I'm definitely a bad influence." She said, brining the bud to her lips again. She puffed out a ring of smoke and passed it back with a warning look. "Talia'd better not be banging down my door after this for corrupting her precious baby."

Jason laughed then, the sound both rougher and higher than it usually was. He thought it was better he didn't mention that Talia ' _had_ ' warned him off spending time with her, better not to give Stephanie any more fuel for that fire. He breathed in more smoke deeper than before, he watched the red burn higher, almost finished, then blew the smoke at her.

"Jason." She waved it away from her hurriedly. "I can't smell like smoke! Do you know what they'd do to me?"

"Tell your mother you're hanging out with a bad influence?" He asked raising both eyebrows with a grin.

"Funny." She breathed in another deep pull of the smoke, this time tilting her head up and letting the smoke escape her mouth in its own instead of blowing it out right away.

Jason watched her for a few seconds, wondered about it his head rested against his raised knees, the cig dangling loosely from his fingertips.

"What?" She asked, breathing out the rest of the smoke and cocking her head at him.

Jason shook his head, turning it aside to hide his grin and breathe in the last of the tobacco. The giddiness slowly warming his insides didn't negate the burn of the smoke, but maybe it decreased the shaking of his hands when he finally put the cig out and tossed it aside to nestle in the damp grass far away from them.

He shoved a marshmallow in his mouth right after, welcoming the sweetness that covered over the sickening taste of the smoke.

There was some clinking and he looked up again to see Stephanie using the lighter to pop the caps of the bottles they'd almost needed his fake I.D to buy like they actually thought he was a damned kid.

"Now that's over, we can indulge in deviant behavior we actually enjoy." She said nodding her head sagely as she handed passed him a beer. "Just one for you though, cause I can't handle the stress of stealing another car."

"Stop acting like I dragged you there." Jason sipped his beer and leaned back.

"You literally did." She deadpanned. "Right out of the bar, ' _and_ ' you stole my last drink."

"Only halfway, you chose to come along for the rest."

"Cause I was drunk and you were being adorable." She shook her head, and then peered down the neck of her bottle before taking a drink. "Guess it's a good thing we only bought the two. Kinda like giggly drunk you though."

"I was literally a crime lord." Jason objected and shuffled to make more room for himself.

" _Was_." Stephanie emphasized, wagging a finger and catching him just as he was about to lay back and tilted him so his head wound up pillowed on her folded legs instead of the blanket. He was too surprised to put up any kind of resistance. Then her hand was buried in his hair and he decided he'd rather not move, he blamed it on the nicotine making him lightheaded.

"My best friend ' _was_ ' also literally the head of the league of assassins for a while you know." She took another sip of her drink then rested it against the marshmallows to dig through the rest of the food in the packages and set out the pack of pretzel sticks he'd already opened.

"Yeah, the ' _one who is all'_." Jason couldn't help but shake his head at the overdramatic moniker that had been applied to the girl who regularly asked him to explain memes even he didn't understand. "I saw her a couple times when I was laid up after…" He cut himself off, fingers trailing over the scar at his throat. He noticed the sudden sharpness in her eyes and quickly moved his hand and downed some more beer.

Thankfully, she didn't ask him to explain, and he was unbelievably grateful. There'd been enough of remembering for one day. Right then he just wanted to live in present, pretend he'd just snuck in somewhere he shouldn't have been to share a smoke and have a drink and just hang out with a girl he liked.

He wanted to watch the stars dance across Stephanie's face while her hand raked thought his hair, and enjoy the light scrape of her nails against his scalp while she chattered on about her classes and whatever other inane things came up.

"I've just discovered the true victim of all this rain." She said, with a pout her head leaning incredibly close to his, close enough that he was hit again with the smell of the smoke on her breath, along with alcohol and sweetness of the chocolate in the marshmallows and the vanilla that always clung to her.

"Yeah?" He forced the word out, blinking up at her his eyes widening when one of her hands brushed across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

"It's taken your freckles form us." She sobbed a hand to her mouth while her other arm curled around his head and she laid her cheek against his forehead.

Jason groaned and ate another marshmallow. "So sad." He rolled his eyes.

"You would have sucked in theater, such a bad actor." She pulled back just enough to glare at him with star covered eyes and glossy lips she struggles to keep turned downwards. Close enough that he could have just reached up and…

Jason pressed a marshmallow into her mouth and laughed at her offended shout.

It felt so natural, so, so _'normal'_ , and he hadn't felt that way in such a long time. It wouldn't last forever, it couldn't, and he knew that, but still, he was determined to enjoy it for as long as it did.

O

O

O

Jason didn't pretend to feel anything for the drug dealers being pulled off the streets to be made into lab rats for the new poison they were all peddling. Sure, he hated that they were being used to further the commonality of the thing he'd been dosed with when good old Doctor Arkham had tried making him ' _let go'_ of his delusions via spilling everything he knew about the Bats flying around Gotham, but personally, he felt nothing.

They'd brought it on themselves after all, and if a lot of the ones who gone missing were also those he'd squeezed for information well, he was sure their bosses were keeping them more comfortable than Jason would have under the circumstances.

So when he tracked down what he was fairly certain would end up being the another ' _laboratory'_ , he wasn't as prepared as he would have been otherwise. Still relaxed, his mind held up on the hours spent at the planetarium that day, on Stephanie, Jason didn't notice anything odd about the sniffling until the door was already open.

He'd been ready for a room full of doped up drug dealers.

Those, those weren't drug dealers.

O

O

O

Steph was still grinning when she got back to her apartment, the tension she'd been feeling earlier in that day all the previous night barely even a flicker on the edge of her thoughts. It was still raining outside, still cold and damp, but she still felt warm when she thought of Jason, the way he'd looked at her, for just a few seconds when she'd been angles away.

It made her wonder if maybe, there was even the smallest chance he could have thought of her the way she thought of him, even a little.

Nothing had changed, not really, but everything felt a little better anyway.

She shook her head as she shut her door and leaned against it, pressing the back of a hand to her feverish head. She really was acting like a lovesick little girl wasn't she? When was the last time she'd even thought about things like that?

Her cellphone had died not long after they'd gotten to the planetarium, and Jason was supposed to text her if he found anything case related during his investigations, she had to charge it.

Halfway across the room she noticed a clinking sound coming from the darker depths of her apartment. Steph froze where she stood, angled her head in the direction of the sound.

Her security had still been in place when she'd come home, a run of the mill burglar, hell, most not run of the mill burglars would have had a hard time getting past that without leaving some trace beyond. Very few of those who could would have been there for just a friendly visit.

Stephanie let out a very loud, very deliberate yawn and carried on through her tiny kitchen towards her tiny living room. If she could just get to her bedroom and the panic button installed there. Pretend she hadn't noticed the intruder and he might not try anything right away.

A lamp clicked in and Stephanie jumped, hands already flying to the nearest throwable object before she even saw who it was.

"Tim!" Stephanie yelled at the boy sitting on her couch, munching on the stale popcorn she and Jason had abandoned that morning, a beat-up backpack occupying the seat next to him. "What are you doing creeping around like that, oh my god do you want me to die?" Her hand clutched at her chest and her rapidly beating heart. "What the hell?!"

"Sorry." Tim shrugged, studying a piece of popcorn he had pinched between two fingers. "Tried calling but…" he pulled out his cellphone and pressed the call button, letting her recorded voicemail spill out of the speakers.

"Oh right." Steph shook her head and let out a relived sigh. "Didn't have a charger." She waved her dead cellphone at him and crossed past to her bedroom where she could get her hands on said charger.

"You look nice." Tim said, his arms folded over the back of her sofa as he watched her through the still open door, he picked a short strand of hair off the fabric nest to his elbow and flicked it away. "You have a date or something?"

"No." Stephanie finally plugged her phone in. It blew up with a flood of missed calls and texts as soon as she plugged it in. "Just studying with a friend. Year round classes, ' _not'_ one of my better ideas." She tried to look apologetic when she turned back to him, tried to ignore the return of the dread festering in her gut.

"Speaking of your classes." Tim stood up, lifting his bag and unzipping it as he came to her room and Stephanie felt herself fighting the urge to shrink away. It was just Tim, it was ridiculous to be afraid of him. "You never came back to fetch your homework." He handed her the stack of papers with an easy smile.

"Oh, right," Steph cleared her throat and claimed the stack of papers, surprised by the tiny amount of resistance she got before he let go of them. "Uh, thanks."

"Also, I read through some of Jason's books." Tim pulled the thick covered volume out of his bag as well and dropped to sit on the edge of her bed.

"Yeah?" She set, carefully setting her homework besides them keeping her eyes on it and not him.

"You were right the 'notes' are…" He smirked sharply, the action reminding her more of a cat baring its teeth, "heh, cute."

"That's nice I guess." She swallowed, her tongue feeling thick and heavy in her mouth as she watched him page though the book. "You coulda told me later tonight you know, didn't have to go all intense stalker on me."

Tim hummed, his thumb flipping through the book, his eyes however, stayed fixed on her. Hard, questioning, she saw that look a lot, just never directed at her. After a while Tim let out a sight, a tired, resigned sound that was somehow worse that any amount of shouting could have been.

"You're really going to make me say it, aren't you?" He asked, setting down the open book besides her homework. The blocky handwritten notes stood out starkly against the neater rows of letters they'd been lined up against.

No no no no no no no…

Steph wasn't sure if she voiced the words the horror that came with it being laid out before her aloud, but the way Tim looked at her, she might as well have.

Tim's voce was cold when he spoke, none of the friendliness or even frustration she was accustomed to hearing from him over the years.

"Where is he Stephanie?"

O

O

O

It was carnage. They'd use that word when they found out. Jason thought as the green at the corners of his vision faded. Efficient, quick, messy carnage. A dozen bullets for a dozen heads.

There was something caught in his throat, there had to be, because he'd known it wouldn't last, had known since he'd left the clinic that day. It was why he'd run away from the sleeping girl as soon as he'd felt his hand reaching for the strands of sunshine bouncing off her hair.

He known, and been ready for it when he'd gone back, he'd been ready for it, should have been…

His cellphone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket, pressed it against his ear as he stepped over the pool of blood already congealing on the dusty blue carpet.

It didn't matter, it was over and he still had work to do.


	26. RPG

**_Please don't spam the review section nagging for updates with a guest account, it inflates the review count unnecessarily and it WILL NOT magically give me the hours of free time and motivation I need to write a new chapter. I'm happy you're enjoying the story, but please stop_ _nagging for updates._** ** _xxx_**

"Where is he Stephanie?"

"Tim." Steph gripped the pages of homework, her hands crinkling them hard enough to tear. Even if her throat hadn't gone beyond dry right then, Stephanie wouldn't have been able to answer him. She couldn't deny it, couldn't think of way to justify why she hadn't said anything before. She dropped the pages; let them fall to the ground as she shook her head.

Tim's face morphed quickly to his own quiet fury and he got off her bed, stepped back like he couldn't stand being even that close to her.

"How could you do this?" He shook his head. "To them, to us!" He pressed a hand to his chest, "To me. You were there, every day, you _'saw'_ what was happening, what this was _'doing'_ to everyone, and you just sat on it, all this time!"

"If you'd told me you though he was dead from the start I wouldn't've…"

"If we had _'told'_ you? Cause that's the requirement for turning in a mass murderer now? For stopping us from wasting months chasing a lie! Do you even know what this city's coming to because of what you've done?!" He swept his hand at her window, from which the usual sounds of shouting and car chases bled in. Then he raked the hand through his long hair, sucking in a breath. "Do you know what my _'family's'_ coming to?" His breath hitched and when he finally looked back at her, she physically recoiled from the pain she could see in his eyes. "Babs hasn't left in days, Damian doesn't understand what's going on and ' _no one'_ can explain it to him and Dick…" His breathing became haggard and he averted his gaze. "God, you have no _'idea'_ what you done to Dick. Bruce is going to get himself killed, Cass's ' _father_ ' Steph, is going to kill himself. My father." He let out a sound that was frightfully close to a sob.

"Tim." Steph got up off her bed, one of her hands racing for his trembling shoulders.

"And for what?" He swiped her hand away from her, backed more towards the window waving his hands between them. "So you can play out some kind of forbidden spy drama fantasy with a sociopath who'd have slit your throat the first time you met if he'd thought he would have gotten away with it!"

"It's not like that!" Steph's fists were white knuckled at her sides. "It's nothing like that, he's, he's _'helping'_ , if you just let me explain…"

"You can explain tonight in the cave." Tim batted her hand away with a scowl. "To everyone."

"Tonight?" Steph swallowed, once they knew things wouldn't ever be the same, she couldn't tell them, she'd promised Jay she wouldn't. She looked helplessly at Tim. "I can't, just, can't you just give me a little more time, to…"

One of his hands shot out, made a cutting motion to silence her as he walked past her. "You've had enough time Stephanie, be thankful I'm giving you the chance to do this yourself." He picked up the bag he's brought along, slung it across his shoulders without turning his front to her. "You could have come to me with this earlier you know. I would have helped you, because you were supposed to be my friend, and that's how you treat friends," he looked at her over his shoulder, the blue of his eye reflecting the city lights in a pattern that looked almost like fire. "If you dont tell the _'tonight'_ I will, and I won't be nice about it."

O

O

O

' _Jason, they know! Tim saw your handwriting in those books and my homework and. And I'm so sorry Jay, I shoulda known. I'm so, so…"_ She babbled on, her voice barely understandable though her panic and the ringing in his ears.

"Whoa, calm down there Sunshine. It's okay, you know they had to find out eventually." Jason said, shutting the door behind him to make sure no one wondered into the place, he'd already let the cops know there was something in there, but he'd be long gone before they showed up. "Tell me what happened." If they'd hurt her, if she was even a little bit hurt he was going to rain down every kind of hell on them, starting with the Gotham Gazzete.

' _Tim was there when I got home, and he had one of your books and my stupid homework that you kept looking over and he matched the writing,'_ She swallowed and sniffled on the line. _'And he asked me where you were, not if I knew, just where, and said how everything's getting messed up cause they're too busy focusing on you to take care of things.'_

Jason looked back down the way he'd come; felt the stickiness of the blood stuck to bottom of his boots with ever step. So he was their excuse for ' _that'_ fuck up too huh. Just fucking perfect. Heroes, he scoffed lips curling in disgust.

' _I gotta tell them tonight.'_ She sucked in series of shallow breaths. _'Oh God Jay, what am I gonna tell them.'_

"Just say whatever you have to." Jason was far enough away now, he pressed his back against a wall and looked up at the night sky, devoid of stars, feeling a pang for the ones that had circles above his head just a few hours ago. If he closed his eyes he could imagine them, the softness of her lap, the feel of her hands in his hair, the smell of vanilla when she'd leaned in so close to him. He'll forget it in time, he knows, but he didn't want to, didn't want this to be the last time he heard her voice like this. "Spin them any story, they'll believe it. You got nothing to worry about."

' _Like what?'_ A thump that signified she'd dropped down, onto her bed or the sofa he didn't know.

Jason huffed at the very idea of her not having anything to say. "You'll figure it out, you're Batgirl remember."

' _Yeah, however long that lasts.'_ She huffed. ' _You're the one who told me I wasn't cut out for this life remember.'_

"To be fair that was right after you ate my poisoned porridge." Jason knocked his head back against the wall, it felt like that had all happened so long ago, the time spent with her on the outside almost overwriting her visits to his cell at Arkham, the things she'd brought with her to try and engage him in some way. It was the most anyone had done for him in so long and he'd never gotten round to appreciating it. "I was just being an asshole, you're amazing Steph, you know you are. You're bright and you're tough as all hell and whatever happens, you'll come through it fine."

It wasnt enough. There was so much more he wantes to say. So, so much more, but he knew if he did he might not have been able to stop, to fight the urge to go over to her apartment and see her just one more time, so he could have just one more chance to memorize the feel of her, of her voice, her laugh… God he wanted to hear her laugh again, but he couldn't think of anything that would do it right then.

"You know, the Batgirl thing falls though, and I'll bequeath upon you my old Red Hood gear. It'll be great, scourge of the underworld now with vanilla scent."

' _I'd be fabulous.'_ She chuckled softly, and he guessed that was all he was going to get.

Jason held back a sigh, looked back down the path he'd walked from the warehouse. "Can I uh, ask you a favor?"

' _Yeah, sure.'_

"When you find out, please don't…" He caught himself at the last second, swallowed down the walls and banged his head against the wall again. "…hate me."

' _Jay?'_

"It's nothing." He said, leaning more of his body weight against the wall, letting himself slide down to sit on the ground. "You gotta go, we'll talk later." He said it like he meant it, like just saying it that way would make it true.

' _Yeah.'_ She said softly, then louder. _'Yeah, okay. Bye Jay_.'

"Seeya round Sunshine." He hung up on her before he could do something stupid. Tossed the cellphone as hard as he could, and before it'd even stopped skittering across the ground he drew a gun and emptied the three bullets remaining in the clip into the device, silencing it for good.

"Seeya round." He muttered dragging himself to his feet. He pulled another phone out of his pocket when as he walked out of the alley.

"Need ya to send some intell my way for a job I just picked up."

O

O

O

Despite its size, the cave felt cramped, and it took Steph a minute to realize it was because it had been a long time since they'd been so many of them there at once.

Tim was sitting in the big chair in front of the batcomputer, watching Steph's approach. Dick was buffing some reddish scuffmarks off Jason's case, and Cass and Damian were on the sparring mats while Babs watched from her seat at her own computer set up.

"Hey Steph." Cass waved when Steph got to the main part of the cave, but Steph couldn't wave back, couldn't unwrap her arms from around her middle.

"Just say whatever you have to say." She mumbled under her breath, like that would make it easier to know what it was she had to say, she tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. They heard the elevator descending from the manor as Cass came to stand by Steph, a deep frown on her face. She rested a finger on her friends shoulder, but Steph shook it off, stepped aside, she couldn't handle any of Cass's kindness right then.

"What's wrong, are you… okay?" Cass asked, though she was able to see damn well that Steph was not, she appreciated the gesture anyway.

She looked over at Tim one more time, silently begging him for more time, but his gaze was cold, impassive, and she turned away quickly her eyes catching on Dick instead, still by the case as he watched the elevator doors whoosh open and Bruce stepped out.

"What's this about?" He asked, already going to the racks holding his equipment to start prepping for another patrol.

"It's…" Steph watched him, looked around at the others Tim had gathered. The only one not there was Alfred, and Steph didn't want to think about why. "Tim, just…"

"No Stephanie." He said, turning around his chair to face everyone else.

"I can't …" She sucked in a breath, felt it catch in her throat and had to struggle a little to make it go to her lungs.

"Steph?" Cass tried to offer comfort again, but again Steph rebuffed her.

"It's about Jay… Jason." She choked the word out an suddenly everyone's eyes were on her, pinning her in place like those little butterflies that had always been on display in her highschool biology classes.

"What about him?" Bruce asked, his body tense, as if he was bracing himself for a car crash.

"He's threatened you?" Damian asked, his eyes drifting over everyone else in the cave. The energy changed almost immediately and they were all exchanging worried glances.

"No!" Stephanie shot down the idea before it could take route even a little, realizing with a pang that felt like a knife entering her chest that this was what Jason had meant by 'say what you need to say'. Say it wasn't her fault, that he had something over her, that she couldn't have told them she's seen him and that they'd believe her.

Even Tim's stoic posture had wavered at Damian's question, and Steph felt her fear tricking away, being replaced by something that really didn't feel any better.

"He never, he never ' _threatened_ ' me." Steph fought back a snarl and shook her head at them. "How's that the first thing...!"

"You've found a new lead then?" Bab's asked, already opening up a new tab, ready to begin working. "Tell me what you've got and I'll send…"

"It's not a lead." Tim said, cutting Babs off before he turned his glower back on Stephanie. "Stop stalling and tell them, now."

"I know where he's been." Steph blurted the words out past the weight she felt forcing the air out of her lungs.

"Where?" Bruce demanded, the same time as Dick practically leaped from the little dais surrounding the case to approach her.

"Is he…" Dick began, but words failed him before he's reached her.

"He's okay, I mean compared to what you're all thinking…" He wasn't dead, or in a gutter, or doped up on frenzy, or something worse in some creepy old doctor's basement.

Dick swayed, almost didn't get to a chair before he folded in on himself, burying his face in his hands. "Oh thank god." He breathed out, coming uncomfortably close to making it a sob and melting into the hard chair like it was the softest thing in the world and he hadn't sat down in weeks.

What she'd done to Dick. Steph backed away, from him, from all of them. He looked so tired, they all did. She _had_ seen what her lies had done to them and she'd been too wrapped up in the friendship she was forming to care. They deserved the truth, her part of it at least, for what she'd put them though. Jason deserved to have them know the truth, even if he didn't want to speak to them.

"Where, how did you find him?" Bab's asked, her arms dropping from her keyboard to go limo at her sides.

"At Arkham." Steph admitted, almost turned away but forced herself to look at the as she spoke, unwinding her arms from around her.

"But I searched Arkham, me and Bruce both." Dick said, eyes flickering between Steph and Bruce. "There's not an inch of that place we don't know about anymore, there can't be."

"I found him before you looked." She brushed her hair behind her ears.

"What?" Bab's voice was flat, cold. Cass who'd been hovering around Steph since the conversation began turned her head quickly, surveying the room before she took two steps away from Steph.

Damian began marching up to Steph, but Bruce grabbed the boy's shoulder before he could pass him by.

"Explain, now." And there was the commanding Batman voice they'd all gotten used to throughout the years, only darker, more dangerous. Steph had never been more afraid of him.

"I found him the same night I found the tapes." Steph said, backing away from him, towards the case. "He was in one of those side passages and I…" She her foot bumped against the dais. "I took him to Leslies before I called you."

As one, they moved away from her, even Tim, as if he hadn't been known, and maybe he hadn't, that particular homework assignment really hadn't been that old.

"Then why the hell didn't you tell anyone?" He asked, rising from his seat, stalking towards her.

"Because you were gonna hurt him again!" Steph glared at him, bracing her hands against the cool glass at her back. "He couldn't even sit up on his own, and before I even got to Leslie's, he just stopped breathing, and when she got it started again, he, he had fucking stroke, he's twenty and he had a stroke, cause _'none'_ of you would help me look for him when he went missing the first time, then you just, just wanted to do exactly the same thing again as soon as you got your hands on him." Stephanie's breaths were coming in shallow gasps and the anxiety building in her chest was almost painful.

"We're going to hurt him?" Tim laughed a mirthless, mocking laugh. "Hurt HIM? He's a murder!"

"So's he." She waved her arm out at Damian, the she looked over at him and her heart sank with the knowledge that she'd thrown a kid under the bus and something inside her shriveled up even as she turned quickly aside from them. "And just the other day Babs, Huntress stabbed a mob boss in the neck, and Catwoman threw Black Mask out of a window, and Cass, you were literally the queen of assassins for a while there." Steph waved her reached out for her friend. "You helped her, why not him? The only person he has is Damian's crazy mother, and you can bet she's not encouraging him to become a fucking pacifist? You know, I asked him once, just once, when he barely even knew me not to kill anyone on this case and he didn't."

"Yet." Bruce growled the word out. "He hasn't killed anyone ' _yet_ '. You think you know him, and yet…"

"I know him better than any of you." Steph's heart neat stopped beating in her chest when she interrupted ' _Batman_ '. She stepped away from the case, leaving her smudgy handprints on the glass. "I know he likes old movies, and music, and he eats ' _way_ ' too much junk food, and he's a such a freaking lightweight for his size, you wouldn't believe, and he listened to that one song from the corpse bride at least six times when I got him to watch it, and he's just so, so ridiculous, and easy to tease and …" Stephanie felt the tears trailing down her cheeks, had to pause her rant to wipe them aside with her palms and try to get her breathing under control.

"You think any of that excuses him?" Bruce was drawing nearer to her, cape swishing behind him like the literal wings of something that crawled out of hell, the furious expression on his face making the image even more striking. "'Liking' someone isn't an excuse to paint over everything they've done!"

"Well neither is hating them." He stood on her toes to spit the words out as close to his face as she could, and she would have sworn Bruce flinched. "You know, Bruce." She ignored the tears now, balled her hands into fist at her sides to keep them from striking out. "Jason jokes about 'dying' and getting tossed in the Lazarus Pits, and clawing his way out of his freaking grave, but he has this one scar on his neck he won't even talk about."

"Choose your next words very, very wisely Stephanie." He said, his voice even the way something that had been sanded down paper-thin was sharp.

"When I asked, he just told me to ask _'you'_." She thrust a finger out at him, before she was grasping at straws, but going by his reaction alone, she knew she had to be on to something, the way everyone was watching them now, they could see it too. "I kinda thought it was just something from when he was Robin, and it was something embarrassing…" She remembered the way Jason's tensed up when her fingers had brushed the scar at the planetarium, and her hand came up to brush where it would have been on her own neck. "But the Pits take scars away, don't they? And he couldna gotten in before he came back, cause then how would you know? What did you do to him?"

This time Bruce didn't react, didn't so much as twitch a muscle she could see. Cass's reaction spoke for him. She made a soft choking noise and stumbled back a few steps.

Steph backed up too, watched the silence settle him, stretch taught like it was a tangible thing. She shouldn't have brought that up, she realized suddenly. It wasn't the kind of personal thing that you brought up in this kind of argument. She backed away from Bruce, kept going right until she bumped into Tim and the silence broke.

"What did you ' _do_ '?" Babs demanded, wheeling herself quickly to Cass so she could wrap an arm around the girl.

"He was covered in armor; there was no other way to stop him." Bruce said stoically.

"That scar is right by his carotid." Dick said, taking a halting step towards the older man. "Oh my god." He whispered. His hand shot out to brace himself against the back of his chair, then he spoke louder, "Oh my fucking God," His voice was breathy, unsteady. "And I said I wanted him dead after that."

Babs shot him a questioning look and Dick jerked a thumb across his throat.

"You did that?" She pulled Cass closer, her eyes flaring thunderously behind her glasses. "For Joker?"

"It was for _'him'_." Bruce was shaking, his knuckles making an odd creaking sound. He looked angry, but like he wanted to look angry. Underneath there were cracks showing, and any second one of those cracks would widen enough for something to peek out. Steph didn't want to see that. If It felt wrong with Dick, she didn't want to see Bruce break, not in any life.

"I think you should go now." Tim said, his hands holding onto her shoulders from behind, he began to steer her out of the cave.

She wished she were angrier, that she would lash out at him that he'd been the one to make her do it. She'd asked him for time, a better shot at explaining that a room full of people, but he's made her do it. He'd made her do it because his family was teetering at the edge and he hadn't wanted to risk them for another night. Now he's made it worse, she'd made it worse. So instead, she nodded mutely, swung a leg over bike and moved sped out like the ghosts of hell were on her tail, just happy to be out of there.

Before she'd even cleared the long wooded road back to the city Steph pulled over, one of her hands snaking out to press against her throat. Had Bruce really… But he wouldn't, Bruce didn't do thinks like that, he knew how dangerous throws like that could be, had drilled it into them all over and over again how far they were expected to keep anything sharp and pointy away from any dangerous parts of their enemies, but then. When had it happened? How had it happened, and, and why?

She wanted to call Jason, ask him about herself, but how could she when he hated her even touching the damned scar?

She didn't know how long she stayed there, on the side of the road, staring of into nothing before the bat signal lit up the sky. For a minute she watched it, then she kicked her bike into gear and sped off towards it, she doubted the rest of them would be getting around to it that night.

O

O

O

"Got called in around seven thirty, we thought it was one of your frenzy massacres, again, but, well you'll see." The commissioner said as he led her down the alley. "Was hoping to get one of your older colleagues for this."

"Family emergency." Steph said, trying to slap in her Batgirl cheer and failing miserably. "Robin stole Red Robin's toothbrush again and man can those boys go at it."

"Maybe we should wait for the others." He clasped a hand on her shoulder, keeping her from entering the building.

"I can take it Commish." Steph said, but mentally braced herself before she opened the door.

The smell of their blood hit her before anything, and then she got sight of the red soaked blue carpet. Red with the blood of at least a dozen people. Steph went in, crouched over one of them with the commissioner at her side.

The bullets had killed them, but there was also more bruises than skin, a compound fracture poking out through someone's skin. Brutal, but despite the sheer number of injuries, she could tell by just the sheer lack of bloody footprints that is had been quick. None of them had been given the chance to run.

"This is a whole other guy." Steph said, licking her lips. "He was mad, real mad, but not in a, you took all my drugs kinda way."

"More like a 'you've stabbed my mother' way, huh?" Detective Gage came in behind them a couple of coffees in his hands, he handed one off the commissioner, who gave him a disbelieving frown. "It's Gotham, right?" His shrug didn't make him seem any less uneasy as he walked out, Steph following the commissioner, following him. "Haven't seen you in a while." He said to Steph, and she smiled turned her head away and remembered when a smile that from him would have made her blush.

"Been busy." She swallowed down the bile rising in her throat and turned away from the bodies.

"Oh, catch the commissioner's mysterious rescuer yet?" The detective asked.

Steph had a mini camera out and was taking pictures of the scene for later. "Nah, we're kinda busy with…"

"You came in here for something, Detective Gage?" The commissioner interrupted her.

"Yeah, one of the crime scene guys bought this of a couple street kids." He held up an evidence bag filled with a piece of broken electronics parts. "Wants to know if he's gonna get reimbursed. Same caliber as our dead pimps here."

"Ugh, waste of a cellphone?" Steph asked leaned in to get a better look at the weirdly familiar mess of wires and plastic.

"Fried it too, we're not getting anything off this." Someone in a navy jumpsuit popped up behind them.

"The call came in around seven thirty?" Steph asked.

"Well seven twenty-six but…"

Steph was gone before he'd finished talking, leaving him to crane his head around the room searching for her.

Outside, she swung her leg over her bike and finished dialing Jason's number.

' _The number you have dialed is no longer in service, please…'_

She pressed down on the end call button and dialed again. She'd called Jason at seven forty five, which would have been right after ' _someone'_ had called the cops. If it were him, he'd have walked about two blocks before he hung up on her.

' _The number you have dialed is…'_

' _The number…'_

She didn't drop her cellphone, she was too well trained for that, but she came close. Steph kicked out her breaks and sped off in the direction of Jason's apartment.

O

O

O

When she got there she wanted to believe it was just like when he'd found that other room, the one he'd called her for.

The door isn't locked when she gets there, Jason wouldn't have just left it open like that if he wasn't home, but her nerves don't settle, they worsen.

His bookshelf was neatly arranged as always, the dried out wreath of flowers she'd given him still hanging off a nail on the side. There was still food in the fridge, enough for a few days at least, but the fancy tea he'd gotten from Talia was gone. So were the knives he'd had displayed above his TV.

The duffle bag was gone from under his bed, but in its place was something roughly the same size.

Steph crouched down and pulled it out, a lot heavier than she'd thought it would be and made harder by the angle she had to reach it from, she wound up rolling it the last of the way out.

A bazooka, no an RPG, a ' _real'_ one, spray-painted in purple and gold that still hadn't fully dried yet. Steph turned it over and a piece of floral patterned paper taped to the side caught her eye.

' _You wanted to try your hand at being the rebellious one right? Try it out on Penguin :p'_

' _Cheers Sunshine'_

' _-Jason'_


	27. Storage

Steph had a lead, one measly lead she'd intimidated out of one measly thug from the ' _auto-shop'_ across from the building Jason had shot up. Turned out for all the trouble it had caused her, being knows as the Red Hood's _'sister'_ still gave her a little pull. Especially now with them thinking he was back.

' _You're amazing Steph._ ' He'd never called her Steph before. ' _You know you are.'_

She shot out her grapple; let it carry her over the gap from one skyscraper to the next.

' _But it's okay because he's '_ ridiculous and easy to tease' _, right?_ ' Tim had been livid, angrier with Steph than he'd ever been as far back as she could remember.

' _You're bright, and you're tough as hell, and whatever happens you'll come through it fine._ '

But she wasn't fine. She landed wrong on a rooftop, too much forward momentum, her feet skidding, stumbling along the rooftop. She slammed her hand against a ventilation shaft to catch her balance and almost immediately spun on her heel and smashed her fist into the metal a second time, making a shallow, circular dent in the shiny surface. Her knuckles felt the shock even though her gloves, but it wasn't enough so she hit it again and again and again until her knuckles ached worse than they had when she'd been trying to meet Bruce's crazy standards for Robin preparedness.

' _When you find out… please don't…'_

Cass wouldn't talk to her, whatever her friend was feeling, how things were going with the rest of her family, Steph was sure they hated her right now, all of them.

'… _hate me.'_

Steph pulled her fists to her side, eyes burning. She should have known, should have known something was wrong when he'd asked that. But she'd been so elated, so bolstered and warmed by the other things he'd said, the complements and reassurances that everything would work out. He'd just sounded so damned ' _confident_ ' aside from those few short seconds. He'd made her think she could do anything, and then left her all alone.

Steph dropped her head against the vent with a dull, empty thump that echoed all the way down. It wasn't helping, sitting around moping like a little kid. Her gloves creaked when she balled her shaking hands into fists at her sides tightly enough to pop her knuckles. He didn't get to leave things like that, didn't get to up and disappear on her again.

With a growl low in her throat and another hit of the airshaft, Steph pushed away and carried on with her trek through the city. No one else would work with her on this, let her know what they did, if they there was anything they did, but that was just fine with her. Not like working alone was a foreign concept, she was a detective too she could investigate just fine on her own.

Too bad for whatever idiot had shown up to her investigation grounds before her.

They were loitering around the outer edges of the buildings like they thought they were being stealthy. The heads ducking in and out of the partly boarded up windows of an apartment in a scrappy seeming building that was a ' _lot_ ' nicer on the inside, at least when compared to the not-boarded up windows she could see pretty clearly.

From her perch crouched low on a rooftop higher up and across the alley with a pair of binoculars an d some listening equipment, Steph followed the concentration off goons, none of them wearing any gang colors, well unless the guys in suits counted, but most of those were kind of dead anyway, so… God, she really hoped Gotham instinct crept in to keep the other tenants inside their own apartments, that they were ' _safe'_ in those apartments even then.

She caught the glimmer of a red helmet right before she switched her binoculars to thermal. Sure, great she'd take on Mister Red Hood if she had to, beating the crap out of the asshole might've even been therapeutic if he was one of those idiots who tried to keep his goons out of fight's he considered _'his'_.

He has his hand wrapped around someone's throat, pressing them hard against a wall as he growled at them for answers in a voice that was both modulated and more gravely than the one Jason made fun of Bruce for.

'… worker, didn't get told specifics, never knew…'

' _You really believe I'm that stupid!?_ ' Oooh, and he was super angry too judging by the shaking of his shoulders and, well, his screamy voice. ' _If you didn't know I wouldn't have come here. You HAVE to know, now TELL ME BEFORE I THROW YOU out of this window."_

' _What do you want me to say!?_ ' The guy yelled back, his hands scrabbling at the hands wrapped around his throat. _'Heard he came in, and killed everyone, don't know who he was, nobody knows!'_

' _Then why are you alive?'_ Fake Hood yanked the guy over to a window and called over two of the men to pry the planks apart.

Steph turned her goggles and got her first good look at the lot of them. Fake Hood's helmet was a lot shinier than anything she'd seen Jason with, his shoulders shuddery and tense with the effort of forcing his begging victim over to the window. There was something familiar about him though, about the set of his shoulders maybe a little in his voice if she changed the tone, took away the distortion, but she couldn't place it.

"Please I told you everything I know, I swear, I never did anything, never knew anything!" Steph could hear the guy's shouting without the aid of her equipment now.

"You KNEW what you did when you took your bribes!" He drew back his hand, ready to shove the guy out of the window. In just over two seconds, Steph had her equipment tucked away and her grapple out, ready to swing into the action.

Her boots planted into the chests of the two thugs, in a shower of half rotten splinters, Steph landed on top of them in the surprisingly nice apartment. One of them got over his shock pretty fast and made a grab for her ankle, but Steph danced out of the way, connected her foot with the side of his head before he could do much more than brush the edge of her boot. A handful of knockout pellets later and they were a non-issue. The one's outside however… Steph could hear them coming, but Fake Hood had a gun to the other guy's head.

"Batgirl." He said, his voice coming off even weirder in person than it had over a speaker. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Yeah, you'll find I am."She stalked a little closer, saw him twitch and all those lectures about staying clear of that red helmet should she ever catch sight of it had her hesitating for just a second, just one measly little second. She still got the gun away from the hostages neck, kicked it right out of Fake Hood's hand, but the bullet still got out, lodged itself in the other guys side.

Steph didn't have time to look at him too closely. Had to move too fast to keep him from following up with some other attack. Her palm strike was aimed at his neck, the only part of him that couldn't have been protected by any hidden armor. Giving him a good uppercut to the jaw would have been preferably, but that helmet looked _'hard'_ and Steph's knuckles were still sore. Hood stumbled back, clutching his throat and before he could come to his senses, Steph got him with a round house kick to his chest, Chuck Norris style, that sent him falling out through the now open door from which his men were trying to come to his aid.

She really didn't expect it to be that easy, so she grabbed hold of hostage guy, now whimpering softly and trying to crawl his way under a table. Her hands got him under his armpits and she hauled him to his feet, tried not to focus too hard on how terrified he sounded at the idea of her touching him, as she pulled him with her over to the wall, hearing his weak begging all the while. Damnit, he was too slow, too heavy for her to carry bodily herself. There was a click and Steph spun to keep the gun not trained on her in her line of sight, pushing hostage guy behind her.

"If you wanted to help." Hood said, rubbing at his chest with his free hand. "All you had to do was ask."

"Yeah buddy, I get you for reals need help, but there're some real nice doctors who'd be worlds better at it than me." She shifted her shoulders so her cape fell over them, cloaked her body. The fabric was bulletproof and she could have it covering her face in a second if that gun went off. Hostage guy however, was unlikely to be that lucky.

He growled under his breath, looking on the verge of losing his temper on her. "Come on now, just hand him over and I'll take care of it." He stepped nearer to her and she took a bigger step back, nudged hostage guy closer to the window with what she hoped was a reassuring smile and used the cover of her cape to reach for her grapple hook. "We're in his together, aren't we?"

He sounded almost hopeful, and it caught Steph off guard for about a second, but Hostage Guy groaned, pressed his hand harder against his wound, and he'd almost reached the window.

"My guy, only thing we're in together here is this apartment, and I got places to be." She backed up further as he approached, kept the distance between them from shrinking.

"You don't have to be scared of me." He said, the gravel falling from his voice so only the modulator remained. "Your brother…"

"Oooh boy." Steph cut him off, she was right by the window, Hostage Guy was right by the window, she could make her exit right now, but she couldn't let people think she endorsed this guy, or that he was Jason. "You really think I'm gonna be scared of some half assed rip off?" She snorted, her arms wrapping around the victim. "Try again."

She fell back wards out the window, grapple in hand, and pulled the bleeding man with her, followed seconds later by an enraged scream. She couldn't carry her guy far, he was heavy and she didn't exactly have super strength, so she didn't have the time to turn around and look at whether or not she was being pursued.

Her bike was parked one alley over, and as soon as they were back on solid ground, she dragged him over to it and powered up the engine.

Only ten minutes later, she was in the more spacious suburbs and confident enough in not being followed to park and alert an ambulance to their location's before she helped No-longer Hostage Guy off the bike and prop him up against the nearest tree.

He was still awake, even pale and shaky as he was.

"You okay? Gonna hold out till the paramedics get here?" She asked, leaning over him, He flinched back violently, throwing up both his hands to shield himself from her. Hands that were supposed to be keeping pressure on the bleeding hole in his side.

"Oh God, and what do you want? I'm just a night guard, I just watch the storage, I fucking swear." Well he hadn't bled out so far, so he'd probably survive. Steph got a handful of sticky field compresses and pressed them against his bullet wound, then took his hands in hers and pressed them down over the bloody spot before she backed away, gave him a little space.

"Geez okay!" She held her hands in front of her, made her posture as non-threatening as she knew how. "I didn't save you just to hurt you more."

"He did! That crazy fucker, and oh god, insanity runs in families. Please god, don't kill me!" He was hyperventilating now, the hands moving away from his side again. Steph hastily yanked them back.

"Okay, firstly, I'm not related to that A-hole, okay. I just got a lead you might know something about a room of dead pimps, and was hoping you could make me know too." Steph said.

"I don't know who he was, those suits just wanted to off me so I wouldn't talk about the storage, but I don't know shit about what's in there, any…"

"Okay, so what ' _do'_ you know?" She folded her arms and leaned against the tree he'd slumped against. How long had it been since she'd slept last anyway? "What bribes was that guy so mad about."

"I'm a security, papers say I'm s'pose to keep stuff from getting stolen, but it's really making sure no one's living outta them. So a couple guy's live in those things, cheaper 'n rent, and they pay me little under the counter to keep my mouth shut. So what? Who the fuck cares huh?" His breath was coming in short gasps, eyes getting that glazed look that came on when people were going into shock.

"Hey, no sleep." She slapped him once sharply across his face, it intensified the glare, but anger meant conscious and until the meds arrived, she was okay with that. "Which storage cell in particular were they mad about."

"Don't know, list in my booth." He said, starting to curl around the wound. "Please don't…"

"I get it; you'll be okay, okay?" Steph could hear the ambulance coming off in the distance; she waited until they made an appearance then took off to find the storage place.

O

O

O

' _You're still good Jason, you're so, so good Jason. There's so much good in you even if you don't think so and I…'_

What had she been about to say that night? He's torturing himself thinking about it, he knows. Remembering feel of her finger tips tracing along his scars, the soft smile that curled her lips when she stroked down the bridge of his nose and leaned in close to inspect him for freckle. Her hair slipping though his fingers…

The corrugated metal of one of the badly placed shipping containers he was tucked between scraped at the back of his hi-tec goggles as he pulled them off his eyes so he could look up at the sky with its light peppering on stars, unobstructed by their filtered lenses. It was a lot nicer than the sky hanging over Gotham.

He hadn't thought much of it back then, not until he'd played that conversation through his mind so many times it was like he could have sworn he almost heard her sometimes.

For all his learning he hadn't ever had the chance to learn what the hell he was supposed to do with the things crushing the air out of his lungs, hadn't believed they would ever come to apply to him so why bother thinking about it at all? Didn't know why he was thinking about it _'now'_ of all times when his prime focus was supposed to be the blind spots in the shipping yard's security cameras, but the catch of her voice back then, whether real or something his imagination had thrown in after he'd remained it too many times, it was ' _haunting_ ' him.

And fuck it all, he didn't know _'why'_.

With a barely audible sigh, he dragged him eyes from the sky and the caught instead on the puffs of condensation that was floating across the thin beam off moonlight that cut across his hiding place and he was suddenly reminded of the smoke that had left her lips, glossy and pink that last night he'd seen her. A hand came up to grasp at the breaths, but paused when it came into his view. Covered in reinforced gloves, matte fabric patterned in shades of grey and brown camo that blended in near perfectly with the shadows he was hiding in. They were useful for a lot of things, but playing with the ends of her hair wasn't one of them.

Still he watched his misty breaths break against his fingers right up until the beeping in his ear reminded him that he wasn't crouched in that dark, cramped space for shits and giggles.

It didn't really matter that she'd believed for a while he could be good, did it? He bit hard on his lips as he lowered his tactical goggles over his eyes, snapped the hard plastic half mask over his mouth filter any out any of his breaths so they wouldn't give him away in the cold autumn air. Tendrils of green slipped a little closer to the front of his mind.

Jason was here for clean up, and the trash was on its way.

It was obvious they hadn't expected to be followed this far out from Gotham. He'd made a show of that, real big, real messy. Impossible to ignore as a torch dropped in a pool of gasoline. And like the rats they were they'd come scrambling out at the first signs of smoke. Too bad for them, they didn't notice how much of the fire they were tracking after them.

Still, his little performance had them travelling in packs of five even here where they felt ' _safe_ '. Smart, but also really stupid because there were still ' _only_ ' five of them. The only problem Jason would have taking them down would be doing in before they scattered and warned their buddies bringing in the shipment to haul ass and move it.

They moved past his hiding place without incident, heading for the floodlights he'd disabled in preparation for that night, didn't notice the shadow that slunk silently after them.

The four up front were looking about skittishly, their eyes roaming around and you know, doing their fucking jobs, Jason suspected three of those four were more worried about their behemoth of a boss turning on them than anything else. Guy might've gotten his hands on some of that venom compound drug that had been going around for a while before Bruce had gotten it off the streets.

Jason'd have to make a note of asking Steph how that had… he bit off as groan and grit his teeth, pausing in his pursuit to make sure his stupid ass mind didn't make him slip up and give his position away. He took that second to look more closely at scumbucket number five, dawdling behind the rest of them.

The guy was well-outfitted, average height, a little lanky. He stopped every few meters to look at his cellphone screen, tap out a reply. Jason crept in close, near their paths, made note of how often the others looked back to see what Five was doing the answer, not very.

At the next corner, Jason went right to the edge of the shadows concealing him and grabbed the back of the man's armored jacket, is other hand clamped around the mouth before there was a chance for screaming. Not a second later, the blade of one of Jason's new flame daggers was rammed up the back of his skull. Jason held himself away from the brief spray of blood, while he lifted the corpse and laid it in one of the partly open shipping containers.

They hadn't even noticed by the time Jason was stalking them again. His next target was the smallest of the group. He waited atop some machinery that had been left behind for them to pass him by, a thin, triple reinforced cable in hand. The loop tightened around the man's neck and with the turn of a lever and a sharp crack, he was a dead weight on the ground.

This got their attention, but Jason had already stashed the body and moved on.

The big one whispered harshly to the others and they split off to search the rows of containers separately. Behind his goggles, Jason rolled his eyes. So much for them being smart, He appreciated the lack of screaming thought. That would have gotten in his nerves ' _real_ ' fast.

His next target, Jason grabbed from behind. This guy had better armor than the rest, by a pretty big margin, but he doubted it was anything his daggers couldn't handle. Jason sent a silent thanks to Talia for the weapons; they were strong and sharp as all hell, shredded through fibers and flesh easy as butter, ' _whatever'_ her reasoning, he was… 'She's like, totally your mom!' The memory of her voice was so vivid, so startling, Jason jerked back. The knife still did what it was supposed, to cut through the man's neck like it was nothing, but it moved at a completely wrong angle and the man had time to let out a scream before Jason corrected it.

The remaining men spun towards Jason's location, shining there torches right at him. The sudden influx of light blinded Jason, and he reeled back with a curse. "Fuck." He'd have a headache burning behind his eyes the rest of the night for sure, probably the next say as well. By the time, he'd turned down his goggles they were almost out of sight, running the both of them. He'd thought at least the big one would have stayed and tried to fight.

"Fuck." Jason swore again and took off after the big guy first, having some kind of leadership role, he was more likely to know give Jason away. He could only hope the other guy was too busy pissing his pants to alert their bosses to what had happened.

Surprisingly for his size, Big Guy was actually pretty damn fast. Good thing Jason wasn't exactly looking for stealth anymore. He slipped the knives away and replaced them with the pair of red custom glocks he'd retrieved from his stores before leaving Gotham. Bullets found the back of his target's knees and the man dropped down with a scream that despite the lesser need for stealth was still way louder than Jason wanted to hear.

Spinning the guns in his hands, Jason skidded to a stop besides Big Buy and kicked out at the guy's jaw, damn near breaking it and successfully shutting him up. Jason then planted his foot on the man's chest, to keep him from getting up immediately to use his enhanced strength. Another bang and a round fired into the man's left eye and that was taken care of.

There was a click and Jason ducked aside just in time to avoid the bullet that whizzed past him. The last guy was trying to hide in behind a container, same as Jason had been; only he wasn't doing nearly as good of a job. With a leap, Jason scaled up another container and approached his final target, which was now spitting out curses, firing at any shadow that moved and even some that hadn't.

If not for him being, you know, the last man standing, Jason would have shot that one too, long before he had the chance to so much as touch the radio he was reaching for. Seeing as there was, however still information about the ' _shipment_ ' lacking, Jason forcibly pushed back the green trialing over his eyes and nailed his coherence in place.

Jason moved forward, both glocks at the ready; he aimed as he made the leap across containers for his target. He needed the guy alive, not with a working pair of hands.

The radio clattered across the ground, its holder falling to the ground an attempting to crawl on backwards without using his mangled fingers.

"You know what I'm here for, and I'm in a ' _mood_ '." Jason rolled his shoulders as he walked forward, spinning his guns to watch the added fear the added fear they brought brimming in their target's eyes. "Make this easy for both of us and don't waste my ' _fucking_ ' time. Where are the rest?"

Ten minutes later, he had what he needed and there was a coagulating red stain splattered across the white paint of a green shipping container. It reminded Jason uncomfortably of Neapolitan ice cream. With a grimace that flooded his veins with disgust, he turned away from it.

They wouldn't be coming after him in some kind of revenge plot, wouldn't be getting word to their bosses. Wouldn't be getting their filthy hands near another…

Jason balled his shaking hands up tight enough that the only thing keeping his nails from ripping into his palms were the heavy-duty gloves. It was worth it, it was what he had to do, and there was no other…

' _You're so, so good.'_

No, he wasn't. In the end, it didn't really matter what she was going to say, did it?

Not like he'd get the chance to hear it.

O

O

O

Who saved a whole storage unit's worth of assorted fifty-year-old jams? Steph slid the door shut, too confused to truly be grossed out at the moldy, sickly sweet smelling unit; she made a mental note to check that there wasn't some new fruity supervillian on the rise. She's taken a walk around the inside already, just to be sure there was nothing weirder going on in there, but nope, it was just old jams.

Not so happily, she checked yet another row of the list she'd claimed from hostage guy's office. It was a large area, much too large for one guy to keep watch over even if he weren't being bribed to ignore certain parts of it.

It wasn't long before the smell hit her, probably would have been sooner if she hadn't still been ignoring her nose after that last unit. After all the years she'd been a traipsing around Gotham in a flashy costume, she'd both stumbled along and investigated enough dead thing's to know what they smelled like.

The movements of her feet came to an abrupt halt as soon as she recognized it, and her hand moved to warn the other bats that she was going into an unknown situation, only to remember that all she'd hear from her comms would be static. Soon, not even that. They'd come for the suit as soon as they could handle getting close enough to Steph to take it from her. The empty feeling that left in the pit of her stomach should have been easy to deal with by now. She made herself get moving again.

Four of the roller shutter doors had been broken, demolished was more like it. Almost as though someone had crashed a truck into them. Steph approached cautiously, hands reaching for her weapon, as the stench of death grew stronger and stronger. Her eyes were close to watering by the time she reached the one in the middle, where the smell was coming from.

The first thing she noticed was the black foam soundproofing that still clung to the ruined door. Then all her attention was occupied with what she'd found inside.

A kid's bedroom was the absolute last thing she would have expected to find. Complete with rumbled pink covers on the bed, toys scattered about and drawings pinned to the foam covering the walls. Under the bed, her eyes caught a sliver of what she quickly identified as a person. Steph hesitated before entering, tried to take in a deep breath of air to calm herself that had the opposite effect when they terrible smell had her gagging.

There was a lot of sick she saw in Gotham, but some things, thing's that Batman's very presence deterred most of the time, there was nothing in the world that could prepare her for them.

She entered anyway, got out her penlight and stepped gingerly over the toys to crouch down besides the bed. She clamped down on the instinct to turn away at her first good look at the discolored flesh.

Adult, it shouldn't have made her feel any better to know that, but it did. Gathering up any semblance of professionalism she could, Steph leaned in to take note of the injuries littering the body. A broken bone poked at the fabric of a leg, not far below the knee, bruising covered the collarbone and that nose was most definitely broken. If she looked further, she knew she'd find more evidence of the brutal beating this person must have endured.

In contrast, the single bullet wound to the forehead seemed almost kind, despite the blood and grey matter now surrounding the head. Must have been there for at least a week and Steph had a feeling she knew the caliber of the bullet the crime scene guys would find once they checked it.

Without moving the corpse, she snapped a few pictures of it for later, then moved on to the rest of the room too. The drawings on the rumpled sheets, the arrangement of toys scattered seemingly at random, before she moved on to the single cabinet pushed off to the side. After scanning to make sure it wouldn't blow up in her face or something, Steph carefully slid the top-drawer open.

Clothes, but definitely not sized for an adult, and nothing a child should ever be wearing. Hand shaking, Steph reached for the lacey fabrics, the core of her chest gone numb, her fingertips stopped just short of touching it before she drew back in disgust, her head swiveling around for… for ' _something_ '.

But the room was empty, just as she'd left it. Steph rushed for the other broken units, and though neither of them had dead bodies stashed under the beds Steph was no less horrified by the contents. She backed out of the final one, kept going until her spine pressed against the wall on the edge of the wall, her breaths coming in short and quick, eyes burning.

Minutes later, her breaths short and quick, comm's still less than useless; Steph left the storage facility at a sprint. That wasn't something she could deal with alone; she didn't have the resources, or the fucking, the ' _self-control'_ for that.

She didn't see the figure that started trailing her halfway through the city.

O

O

O

Jason dropped into the hard mattress of the motel, all the adrenaline that had been keeping him going having sunk down not long after the small ship that had met the same fate not three hours ago. His body ached right down this bones, the hollowed out pit in his chest still unfilled and unlike the days before, there was no green struggling to fill it.

There was nothing, not even the satisfaction that should have come with completing the task he'd set for himself.

He ran a hand though his hair, and looked over at the laptop he'd yet to pack away. There was nothing keeping him from getting another job as soon as he felt he could move again. Not like he'd ever really run out of work, he could just keep going at it like he had after he'd listened to Bruce's ' _last_ ' words to him, keep moving on and on until…

Until he fucked himself up so bad he wound up shooting a kid in the chest again. Jason sighed, reaching instead for the brown envelope he ' _still_ ' hadn't gone through since he'd found it taped to his door in Gotham. His hands closed around the paper, careful to create not so much as a crease as he slid it from the nightstand to his face, only to return it seconds later. Safer he didn't, for both of them.

He pulled himself up on his elbow, dragged the laptop towards him and began logging into the accounts he had set up on the networks Talia had provided him. Before he could stop himself, he's started up another search on the happenings around Gotham's underground, barely even glanced at most of the hits, and soon found himself zoning in on anything that so much as mentioned Batgirl.

He knew it would mess his up if he didn't drop it, didn't forget everything about that city and move on to something else, but that didn't stop the too familiar paths his fingertips made across the keyboard. Hungrily, his eyes took in the words that let him piece together her exploits since his leave, a smile curling at his lips.

She was still moving along, at a much faster pace that she had when he's been around. He told himself it was good, should have eased the pangs of guilt and regret that bombarded him when he tried to close his eyes. It might have even worked had he stopped a few minutes earlier, powered down the laptop and gone to sleep instead of keeping at it long enough for his eyes to catch on to one glaring set of names.

Jason had bet her safety on the general hesitance most of the smarter high profile assassins had when it came to Gotham, should have taken into consideration those who'd take a job for the very same reason the others avoided it.

His mouth too dry to so much as utter curse, heart having moved to his throat, Jason slammed the laptop shut and leapt to his feet despite the protests of his sore muscles, scrambling to gather up only the items that were simply too dangerous to leave unattended. Jason would catch a few hours of sleep on the way there and pray to any god that would listen that it was enough, that he'd make it in time.


	28. The Dive

The clocktower was predictably sealed off when Steph got there. She was expecting it, but it still stung. It reeked of the years when she'd been locked out of the Batcave and any information regarding what the others were up to Spoiler.

No amount of pounding on the doors and shouting gave her even the barest trace of her voice being heard. They didn't want to see her, none of them wanted to talk to her and still she stood there, her head pressed against the shut entrance that hadn't been closed to her in so long. She'd almost forgotten that feeling.

"Babs please." She tried. "This isn't about me or Jason, there are kids, they need help and I can't help them on my own." She tried, weakly knocking her fist against the barrier. Her only reply was, as much as she expected, the dull, hollow sounding thunk of a metal that was anything back. "Never really took for a hypocrite Babs." Steph said, bringing her balled fists to her side again. You wanna talk big game about the job and not letting personal stuff interfere, and here you're just gonna let that happen, and I know you got the files, cause you're sad I hurt your feelings!" Stephanie spat the words out and slapped her palm against the panel she knew hid both a monitor and a panel.

"Can you at least give me a couple gooperangs? I'm out and seeing as how I already gotta go after those assholes on my own, I'd like to have a little more than just a kitchen knife!"

There was a soft whirring sound that surprised Stephanie enough to have her taking a couple steps back from the door in time for one of the panels to slide aside for a the drawer that popped out the side of the wall. Steph blinked at the drawer for a second, hope turning just a little in her chest when she peered inside… to find it empty.

"The suit, Stephanie." Oracles voice, more distorted than usual filtered through the hidden speakers.

"Oh come on!" Steph wished she could pull the cowl down now to tug at her hair, damnit, she was really starting to envy those dominoes Dick, Cass and Damian wore. "You can have the suit if you listen to me for five minutes about the kids in…"

"Those kids don't need your help." The monitor flickered to life, but instead of Babs, or the computer graphic that was Oracle, a collage of photos and file snippets piled up on screen. The insides of two floors of an office building reduced to ashes, and entire cargo ship sunk off the coast of New York, nothing to say of the many trucks and cars and at least four houses reduced to rubble. Steph closed the tab of the death toll when it exceeded a page. "Now, the suit."

There was one single clip of a suspect leaving the scene of a car bombing, pulling up a hood as he confidently slipped into the shadows. His camo printed clothes blended in too well or he to make out body shape or even really tell how tall he was, and his face was hidden by a combo of goggles and the half mask that covered his face, but Steph could tell. And if she could, then the others had to as well. They'd known what he was doing long before Steph's solo investigating had found so much as the first part of the story and… Oh, so that's what that felt like.

"Bab's I didn't do it to hurt any of you, it wasn't about you." Steph turned away from the monitor and looked into the camera above the door. "It was just, he was so, I just… I wanted him to be safe"

"No, you're right, it isn't about us." Babs said, her face finally coming into view on the monitor, flushed red with anger. "This isn't about you, or me, or the Jason Todd you had editing your damned homework. How long did it take, Stephanie, for him to stop threatening to ' _dismember_ ' you and send the pieces to your mother? Before you went within two feet of him, hell, before you were only forcing yourself to be in the same room as him out of your morbid ' _curiosity_ '?"

"That's not fair." Steph squared her jaw and met Bab's eyes, refused to look away. "He was sick, they were ' _drugging_ ' him, everyday. I had a taste of that stuff, and you did _'nothing'_ about it, you have ' _no idea'_ what that…!"

"No, we had no idea, and we didn't stop it, because they were supposed to be prescribing him ' _medication_ ' because he was a fucking psychotic, because he needed ' _help_ ' and he would have been torn apart in any prison that he didn't tear down around him. Because if he was anything approaching courteous with you there must have been ' _something_ ' the place was doing right." Babs drew in a shaky breath and hardened her glare further. Steph just kept herself from flinching, her own anger building in her chest. "It's not about us grieving, thinking he was dead, it's about you not only releasing an extremely skilled mass murderer who has every reason to want all of us dead back into the city, but not telling any of us on top of that. All because ' _you'_ had a damn crush!"

"It wasn't like that!" Stephanie growled, she'd hated when Tim had insinuated that was why she's helped Jason, and she hated it almost as much coming from Babs. "Why does everyone keep saying that?"

"Because we could see it, we could all see it." Bab's face disappeared to be replaced by a clip from Jason's cell, him, still with that too long red hair, carefully adding another marshmallow to the wall he'd constructed on his desk. A smile began to curl on Steph's lips at the memory, and the completely focus on his face that the camera hadn't been able to catch at that angle. Then she turned her attention to the on screen Steph who was attempting to hide her grin behind the bag containing the rest of the marshmallows.

"Why do you think Tim asked you specifically if he'd shown up again when you were suddenly all smiles while we were scrambling to find a body? We should have known you were lying, but we trusted you too much for that, so we assumed you were just seeing someone else. Congratulations, you managed to break up his family more than all of Jason's other schemes put together."

"You're ' _not_ ' the only things he thinks about so shut up about that!" Stephanie tore her eyes away from the footage. "I kept him away from you because you weren't just going to lock him away again. They were already talking about another crazy house to put him in and I panicked okay." She pressed a hand against her chest to still the tension building there. He was hurt, and I was so scared he was gonna get hurt again, worse, and it's our job to protect people no matter who they are or what they did. I was trying to protect him, and I'm not going to apologize for doing what I was taught to do. If I told them where he was, you were all just gonna hurt him again."

"Did you really believe that?" Jason and Steph disappeared from the monitor, replaced by Bab's hard face. "After you had a chance to calm down, and he was stable again, did you really think that we would do that?" Bab's jabbed a finger at herself. "That _'I'_ would do that?" Her hands went to grip at the armrests of her chair. "Because when Cass came back after leading the League of Assassins, that's what I did to her, wasn't it. I locked her up and never thought about her again?! Is that what I did?"

"You say that like…"

"Forget about the others. You really thought, after everything I told you, that I wouldn't have done my damndest to protect him. That _'I'_ would let them pack him off to another Arkham?"

"Yeah well maybe if you ever…"

"When you were convincing him to watch movies with you, and eat junkfood with you, learning about what music he likes and watching him heal and teasing him, and watching him heal, did it ever occur to that those weren't ' _your_ ' things to learn?" Babs asked, leaning towards the monitor. "Did you think that maybe his family, his father, and his brothers, and his sister could have needed that more? I know you don't give a damn about Bruce or Dick, but did you ever think while he was editing your college homework assignments that he had, I don't know, a sister who struggles with written language and could have used that kind of help? Have you thought that maybe if he'd been with us instead of 'you' he wouldn't have gone back to that?!"

Babs wheeled her chair to the side, giving Steph a look at the pictures and clips from crime scenes still on display behind her. Steph's gaze was drawn to one set in particular, strung up on a crane with blood dripping down off a white sneaker. She tried to match the Jason who had done those things with ' _her'_ Jason. Her big, protective, tried to shove her in a mailbox Jason.

"You didn't just keep him a secret." Bab's said, her voice wavering and tight. "You ' _stole_ ' him from all of us. You ' _stole_ ' him, and then you ' _lost_ ' him, because like always you thought you knew better than everyone else. Because you were selfish and didn't stop to think about what it would do to everyone." She took in a deep breath. "Now. Get. Out." She punctuated each word by jabbing a finger at Steph. "Leave the suit, and don't stay you're sorry again."

Steph looked at waiting drawer, her hand resting on the bat-symbol splashed across her chest. She remembered when Bab's had spoken to her about Jason, about how he'd been a sweet kid, and their guilt had made him out to be something else. How as soon as they though he was dead again their opinions on him did a complete one-eighty and he was suddenly family again. 'Paved over in favor of this idea they made up to make themselves feel less guilty...'

"Well fine." Steph let her hand drop to her side and hang the limply, a chuckle crawling out of her throat as she met Bab's eyes. "But I am sorry Babs. I'm sorry you never said anything like that to ' _Jason_ ', when he was suffering alone in that asylum, and he knew no one was going to help him. I'm sorry that you never gave a crap about him, and I'm sorry you believe everything you're saying when it's pretty clear to me it's all complete bullshit. I'm sorry that _'you'_ decided he was worthless as soon as he was in his grave, and that ' _none_ ' of you even tried to do for him what you did for Cass, and I'm sorry that _'I'_ was the only one who ever told him I was happy he was alive." If Steph's teeth had been grit together any harder she's be looking at a lot of dental work in the near future as she pulled the cowl up and over her head. "But I'm not taking this off until I find him, cause you gotta admit, I wear hypocrite real well."

' _I'm sorry Stephanie, if I don't give a damn about their guilt.'_

O

O

O

From his position leaning against the wall besides the monitors, Dick watched Babs watch Stephanie as the girl strode out of the tower, nowhere near as frazzled as she's been when she'd entered. Babs slammed down on the keys that shut the outer monitor down and retracted the empty compartment.

"You didn't tell her." He said, kneeling besides her chair and resting an arm on her shaking shoulder as she pulled her glasses off and pressed the back of her hand against her watery eyes.

"She doesn't need to know." She looked at the monitor set besides her main one, Jason sprawled only half on his bed, hands resting loosely on the floor besides his head while Stephanie leaned near to him as she could while keeping her books on her lap. "We'll be ready for him when he comes."

She flicked a switch and the screen was replaced by rows of names gathered from one of Tim's League informants besides the looping second's long clip of something streaking by a hidden camera. Oracle put her glasses back on and went to work.

O

O

O

Steph's confidence in her words lasted about fifteen minutes, when she found taking shelter from the rain under a toppled billboard on the roof of the cheap apartment building that shared an alley with The Dive, a can of grape soda dangling loosely from her fingers.

Part of Barbara's words, once she's stopped to think about them, had run true with Steph, even if only a little, even if only because it sounded so much like what Steph had been thinking of Talia after Jason's birthday what felt like years ago now.

A bug buzzed by Steph and she irritably batted it away from her, the jerking movement sent the soda sloshing over the opening of the near full can and spilling onto her chest. Steph let out a cry and swung the arm attached to the can away from her. Because the day just wasn't bad enough already, was it? She grumbled a string of curses under her breath and tried to brush the purple off her batsignal. Wouldn't be wearing that for a while – ever – after what she'd done now.

It was worse because she couldn't really refute any of what Barbara had said, could she? And still Steph couldn't bring herself to regret any of it. Steph had figured out early on that she was motivated in part by selfishness, and she still could make herself regret it.

Who was to say there was something about ' _Steph'_ in particular that had made Jason stick around, that he wouldn't have done it for any of them? That Jason couldn't have been persuaded away from _'his'_ ideas of justice?

Now she was just making herself depressed again.

Steph tilted the can back to take a sip of her soda with a grunt. Her only warning was a soft, high-pitched noise, she was covered in grape soda, and the ruined can was flying by her. It felt like time had slowed down when she watched the can ruined can moving away from her as she pulled back and the collected raindrops on the near invisible string glinted over the light of the city.

Her hand shot out in an attempt to grab the knife that had speared through her can and the string attached to it. Her fingertips just missed their mark when she had to pull back and clear off the building to avoid the next knife to come at her out of the shadows.

The fire escape she touched down on groaned ominously under her weight, and wouldn't ' _that_ ' have been just perfect? Figured the thumps that succeeded her were so quiet they didn't even compare. Steph really hated freaking ninjas.

The first one she actually saw was wearing a familiar armored suit, another blade and string hanging from her hands, the other took Steph a while to make out, hanging back in the shadows as she was. The girl reminded Steph of Cass a little, and being reminded about Cass by someone who was likely not very friendly was ' _not_ ' a good thing in the least.

"So, Scarab." Steph rocked back on her heel, hands feeling around the panic button that wouldn't be summoning any help. "It's still Scarab huh? Long time no…" Her sentence was cut off by a cry when Steph had to duck out of another sharp projectile. She landed on the fore escape one floor down, then had to jump back warns again to avoid being impaled by a hand held knife that followed the first up. "So who's your friend?" Steph grinned widely at her opponent.

"Marque had been hired to be sure your friends don't interfere." Scarab said, shifting her position on the railings. "She will not interfere in our battle."

"Yeah, she's real familiar." Steph got out her retractable staff, one of only two weapons she had on hand, the other being a lone gooperang. "Sucks you wasted your money though, this is gonna be just you and me."

Under that helmet, Steph was sure Scarab was smiling. First thing was getting rid of the suit, maybe Steph was lucky and Marque really wouldn't interfere. Steph took in a deep breath and charged forwards, right, get rid of the suit, just get rid of…

She spun as soon as she was in range aiming her foot at Scarabs face, only to have her ankle grabbed by one armored hand, Steph let the momentum of the first kick carry her away anyway, and her other leg crash into Scarabs face. The force was just enough to loosen the assassins grip enough for Steph to break free and drop to a crouch, gooperang in hand. She leaped up and put all her force into wedging the weapon into slim gap between the plates of armor at Scarabs midsection.

The weapon activated in a shower of sparks and Scarab's scream probably woke up everyone in the apartment building. Steph had just begun thinking of a way to move the fight away from the very not-vigilante like civilians in said building when she hit in the chest by something hard and ' _heavy_ ' that knocked her right off her feet and sent her flying down to the alley below.

There was just enough presence of mind left for Steph to shoot out her grapple before she could go splat on the ground. Instead, she made a much less fatal splat against a steel door and a splash in an oily puddle, gross, but not going to kill her. The cardboard closed sign still taped to the door broke off and plopped down on Steph's face.

"Ouch." She muttered, trying to think past the complete and utter lack of breath left in her lungs and the ringing in her head.

A light crunch nearby brought Steph back to herself and she leapt to her feet, scooping up the closed sign as she did and launching her cardboard projectile at the approaching Scarab. Scarab knocked the cardboard aside, but the couple seconds obscured vision were all the time Steph needed to come at the woman with a an uppercut underside her armored jaw. Scarab retaliated by bringing up the knives attached to her forearm and nearly shaving the girl's nose off.

Steph just barely twisted out of the way, and got a cut long her jaw instead, but couldn't duck the follow up kick that ended with Steph's back slamming into the filthy alley wall again.

"Sure you're not calling your friends little girl?" Scarab taunted, readying another set of knives.

"Nuh uh." Steph slid along the wall to dodge the swipes that left deep gauges in the brick, then ducked under a kick that caved in the door to The Dive. Damnit, that was a steel door, that huge ass dent could have been Steph's ribs. Looked like Steph's gooperang hadn't done as much damage to the suit as Steph had been hoping.

Scarab's next kick just clipped Steph's shoulder, but sent Steph sailing through the air ' _again'_. Her backside skidded across the pool table, thank god for ' _her'_ armors keeping that from hurting a whole lot more, but the pool table was toast now. Steph got second to look around the bar in the dark, and the wave of nostalgia hit her harder than Scarabs kick, which was weird because it hadn't even been all that long since she's been there.

She let out a groan as she sat among amongst the ruins of the pool table and flicked on her night vision, flinching when she saw the damage done to the bar washed in its washed out purple tones. "This place is gonna take even longer to reopen now, you ass."

"You won't be here to see it either way." Scarab shoved a table out of her path and reached Steph in three leaps.

Steph's hands wrapped around a nearby barstool and she brought it up with her, splintering the wood against Scarabs head and knocking the woman back. Steph sent a mental apology to the owner who would be coming back from his prison time to the mess she knew they were going to make.

"You really wanna get into a barfight with a Gotham girl?" Steph cracked her knuckles as Scarab pulled off the sparking lower part if her face armor, revealing her snarling mouth.

Steph vaulted over a couple more tables that had actually been bolted down and got herself to the a non-destroyed pool table neat a wall where she got her hands on a pool cue to replace her lost staff and released the balls with coin she'd gotten out of the broken one.

The clacking of the balls echoed around the bar along with Scarabs crunching footfalls, there was near silence for a second before Scarab ' _lunged'_ at her. Steph hurriedly scooped up the pool balls and tossed them into the air, one by one, then as they fell, she used the cue to whack them Scarabs way, aiming for her exposed lower jaw.

Scarab, being a stupid ninja who just had to ninja, dodged every one of the balls, at least they slowed down her approach a tiny bit. Steph's neck, the cuts on Steph's neck were tingling uncomfortably, making the whole thing suck just that little bit more. No time for it to bother her all that much though. Scarab had gotten near enough to make a grab for Steph. The girl brought her pool cue down in the assassins head and tried to duck under the pool table.

An armored hand closed around Steph's trailing cape – damnit NO CAPES Steph – and dragged her up and right into the waiting knife. Steph twisted and rammed her cue into Scarabs throat, as the blade pierced into her shoulder, and fuck that hurt. Steph drew in a shuddery breath and tried to block off the pain as she wrapped her hand around the blade and yanked it out of her shoulder, if not for the fact that she was wearing nights specs, Steph would have thought the lights had dimmed for a moment from the sudden darkening of her vision. She used it to cut through her cape and free herself from Scarabs hold. Who woulda thought, there's be a silver lining to being stabbed, huh?

Steph slipped under another swipe with a knife and leaped over the bar counter to provide with a tiny but of cover from the assassin as she rifled through strong smelling bottles. The owner had gotten arrested for importing illegal alcohol, Steph was sure she had to find _'something'_ stronger than brandy behind here. Her searching eyes landed on a bottle of clear absinth and Steph if Steph had even an ounce more of energy she would have let out an excited yelp. She opened the bottle; almost considered taking a swig to take away from the gash at her shoulder, then soaked a rag in the booze before flicking her nigh specs off.

The bar went dark foe only a second before it was lit up by the flames of Steph's improvised alcoholic Molotov cocktail. She tossed the bottle to the ground, on the other side of the bar and heard Scarab's shouts when 'her' nightvision blinded her with the sudden brightness.

Steph vaulted over the bar and dashed past Scarab, trying to make for the door.

So close she could feel the chilly Gotham wind on her nose, Marque suddenly appeared, blocking the opening. Instead of sweet freedom, Steph got a pair of feet slammed into her chest; and she was yet again tossed off her feet, her back again slammed into a wall.

"Yep, real familiar." If that happened ' _one more time'_ tonight Steph was gonna…

Scarab was back on Steph, her suit now singed all over the place, she brought her foot up, presumably to stomp down on Steph, but the girl arched her body, brought both of her own legs up and ' _crashed_ ' them into the assassins chest. Scarab backed up and Steph grabbed the woman's shoulders, used the hold to propel herself up and bring her knee ramming into Scarabs neck jaw, then spring boarded over her attacker. It was only after she landed on the ground and way close to the fire than she likes that Steph felt the wetness running down her leg.

There was a bloody line running up along her calf and twisting over her thing in a wicked looking 'S' shape. It took about a second of assessing the damage for Steph to get that nope, it was just a scratch, but Bab's was _'not'_ getting the Batgirl suit back like she'd hoped, well, not unless she accepted the tatters of what had once been a Batgirl suit. It took less than two seconds for Steph to realize that she couldn't really feel any pain from the cut. She couldn't really feel the deep gash in her shoulder anymore either.

No time to think too much past that, Scarab was on her again. Steph ducked a kick and rolled with the momentum to put a few feet between her and her assassin. She came up with a bottle of something real expensive and broke it over Scarabs head, making a deep slice across the woman's chin that must have stung when the alcohol hit it.

Steph got her hands on another bottle and tried to repeat the trick, but it slipped from her fingers and broke against the ground instead.

"What?" Steph looked down at her hand, finding moving it even up to her face hard. A punch came out of nowhere, crashed into Steph's face before she could even think about dodging it. She went down and her legs refused to get under her. Even breathing was getting to be difficult. Steph sucked in as deep as breath as she could, which really wasn't very as Scarab approached, the flickering of the fire glinting on her shiny suit giving her an almost demonic appearance.

"You've just now noticed?" She asked, bringing getting another knife in hand. "A gift from The Society."

Steph's numb hand braced against the seat of the both she's landed near and as she tried to crawl back, away from Scarab, who approached slowly, confidently, like she was so sure Steph was down and out. Well Steph wasn't, there was ' _something_ ' Steph could do, bottles shad rolled all around the bar, if she could just douse Scarab in the contents of one, get her near the fire. She just had to reach them, get her ' _fucking_ ' feet under her one more time. She reached the booth she'd shared with Jason so many times, got a look at the underside of the table. Her hand balled to a fist against the fabric of the seat he'd always sat on and she felt a lump forming in her throat that had nothing to do with the poison before she couldn't even move that anymore. She went completely limp, her head hit the ground with a muted thump and all she could see was the fire.

Why had she thrown it over here of all places anyway? Should have gotten out of the bar sooner. It helped no one if she took the place down with her. A hand gripped at Steph's throat and she was lifted off the ground like an oversized rag doll, then slammed down on her and Jason's table with enough force to knock every trace of a breath out of her lungs.

A fist came at Steph's face, and the girl was powerless to stop it, her body refusing to respond to her brains commands. She couldn't dodge, or pull always and another fist came at her, then another and she saw stars.

The smell and taste of iron on her tongue made her want to gag and as she watched flecks of her blood splatter and smear against the wood. She still couldn't really feel ' _any'_ pain right then, and if she ignored the smell, she thought that maybe, maybe she could pretend the red droplets were just ketchup. That she'd tried stealing Jason's fries again and they'd spilled across the table.

He was going yell and steal hers any second now, and then, then maybe they'd go watch a movie again, and she could tell him… Her eyes prickled and her vision swam as Scarab raised a knife to plunge into Steph's chest, saying something that the girl couldn't have heard if she'd tried. She blinked and salty liquid dropped from her eyes, trialed down her cheeks.

' _I should have told him.'_

There was a hollow thump, and suddenly Scarab was convulsing, her suit spraying sparks like confetti, and the smell of iron was replaced by the tang of burnt ionized air, static electricity pulling at Steph's hair, making it spring to life all around her and cling to everything it could reach.

Scarab was replaced in Steph's spinning vision by a larger, darker shape that lumbered forward, growing bigger the nearer it got. Steph's joke of a breath caught in her throat as it got near and her fist instinct to back away from it was blocked out by the poison. Huge eyes reflecting the flickering firelight landed on her and a heavily modified voice broke out through the featureless half mask as hands came up.

"' _Hope you didn't go'_ and order without me Sunshine." The mask clipped off halfway through the sentence replacing the voice with one much more familiar and so welcome it hurt. The goggles were lifted up off eyes that practically glowed in the dim light.

Steph tried to say his name to reach back for him, getting only the barest twitch of her fingers for her troubles.

"Shh, you're okay." His hand came around to cup the back of Steph's head, gently pulled her back off the table. And Jason, he could have looked the same as he always did. His thumb brushed across her cheek, the bloody cuts on her jaw. He pressed something between her teeth and a bitter, vulgar taste flooded her mouth, burned its way down her throat and all its way into her stomach where it burned some more. The sensation that began flooding her body, pain and pain and nothing else was worse, so much worse.

His hand brushed along her jaw again, brushed her clingy hair aside before his head snapped to the side, and the clattering filtering in through the crackling of the fire.

"On second thought," Steph was lifted up of the table like she weighed nothing and set down gently on the familiar plush seats instead. "Go ahead and order, ya know what I like. Got something to take care of real quick." There was an edge to his voice, dangerous as any of the weapons Scarab had aimed at Steph.

Just as soon as he'd appeared, Jason was gone. Steph struggled vainly to follow him; desperate for reasons she couldn't put words to. The fingers of her hand curled slowly to a fist.

O

O

O

Stupid, careless, arrogant. Jason left Steph at the booth, each step feeling like one in the wrong direction as he clipped his mask back into place and lowered his goggles. He'd left her alone, gone so far away when he'd know, he'd know there were enough bounties on her head to give Bruce a double take and he's left to deal with it all on her own. All because he'd let her perpetuate the idea that she was family, that getting to her would get to him, this was the end result. His fault.

Every muscle fiber in his body was screaming at him to turn around, to get her out of there and pretend that he hadn't almost been too late, that she hadn't been seconds away from bleeding out in the closed down bar he should never have brought her to.

But he had, and she was, and ' _someone_ ' was going to suffer for it, more than even she was. Scarab was picking herself up and out of the flames. Marque recovering from the surprised shot that had downed her at the door.

"Stupid, to think…" Jason drew his keris and Scarab cut her sentence short, looked up at Jason's approached while she pulled the rest of her mask off. "Ah…" She said, eyes glinting along with the fire's reflection on the blade. "Talia's pet. The little toys she gave y…"

Jason didn't give her anymore time to talk, didn't care about what she had to say. His vision was green and his hands found their way around her throat. Crashed her head against the back of the wall so hard that if the cheap wooden panels hadn't caved, her skull would've. Her suit was useless, with the cybernetics shorted out, just a heavy prison of metal that slowed her down. Even as her hand clawed at his, squeezing the life out of her, Jason could see the rage burning in her gaze.

Too easy, it was too easy. She didn't deserve easy, she deserved to suffer, to suffer and suffer the way Stephanie had, to scream and cry, and know she was helpless before he ended her. Jason blinked and his fist was covered in red.

"You took the wrong, fucking job!" He growled and he punched his knife through her armor, into the flesh and muscle beneath. She didn't look at the wound, but fear shone through her hateful gaze. Good. Jason yanked the knife out and kicked Scarab back into the flames, with a snarl. He stalked towards her as she tried to get back up, his knives weren't poison, there was nothing keeping her from feeling every ounce of pain he inflicted on her for what she'd almost done, ' _for sport._ ' When his foot connected with her ribs, and he stomped down on her ankle, she could do little more than shout, her pride preventing her from outright begging.

The fire was spreading, fueled by the alcohol soaking through the floor like a drunk on a rampage, destroying everything it could reach. Jason had to reach, Stephanie, get her out, before it got dangerous.

"Marque!" Scarab gasped the word out and the deathblow he'd meant to deliver was knocked off course when movement registered on the edge of his vision and he had to leap back and out of the way.

"They don't pay when they're dead." The dark haired woman said, pulling her leg out of the hole she'd made in the weakened wood of the bar. Jason went after her, and ducked under the kick she aimed for his chest. In the second it took him to recover, she had Scarab up and before he could stop it, she'd tossed the armored assassin at the door. Enraged Jason, tried to go after her, but the woman blocked his path again, this time with a series of lightning quick punches, only the last of which got him square in his nose, and even that might just have been the concussion he'd probably given her on his arrival.

"You understand professional courtesy, don't you?" She asked with a grin, her eyes going to the crest emblazoned on his combat gear.

"You one of those Cain kids, huh?" Jason brushed aside the blood trickling out of his nose. "Heard about you."

"Not me!" Oh, she was angry now. Jason ducked under a kick and came up with his knife, almost driving it into her eye before she twisted out of the way and got the side of his head with her elbow.

He got in close, sliced at her, but she moved like a snake, twisting and ducking between lashing out like it took no effort at all. Not just flexible, she was fast, a lot faster than him, and if what he knew about her was true, she could tell next move soon as he could think it.

Jason looks over at Stephanie, at the encroaching flames. She'd be able to get herself out of here in a minute if Jason could remove any obstacles to that. It made him almost light headed to think of doing it, but he shut his mind down, let the green that he never allowed past he edges of his vision crawl just that much closer. Almost immediately his guard dropped enough to let her get a hit to the side of his face that rattled something loose in his head he was sure, so he could get his knee to her solarplexis and knock the breath out of her. Then he grabbed a handful of hair and brought her head down on his knee as well. A crack told him he'd broken her nose for sure. Before she could recover, he pushed her aside, then kicked her through the busted door into the pouring rain, out of the bar and away from Stephanie.

She was on her feet in a second and charging at him again. Her fist coming for his face, he got his knife between it and her target, shaving off a sliver of her knuckle before she was able to draw it back and dance out of reach.

"No weapons?" Jason queried, as she came at him again, and he ducked and swiped at her without giving any thought to his movements. The rain gathered on his goggles, obscuring his vision, but he couldn't find a break in the fight to get them off his eyes.

"Don't need them." She spring boarded off a dumpster and wrapped her hands around the rungs of the fire escape and launched herself at him her feet getting him in his shoulder, then kicked of him, landing in a crouch a couple feet away, and wasted no time in coming at him again with her fist ready.

"Cocky." He caught her wrist and ' _twisted_ ' flung her over his shoulder and bashed her head against the alley wall. She leaped back to her feet, and one of his was there to meet her, a knife protruding out the bottom of his shoe at the last second, almost getting her in her back. She rolled aside and came at him again, Jason ducked low, a tazer in hand to press into her midsection. He grabbed her as she convulsed from the current and he pulled back, grateful for the insulated lining of his suit that kept the rain from tazing him too, then bashed his forehead against her broken nose.

She backed up a few steps, and scrubbed away the blood that was trickling down over her lips. He went at her again. His fists crashed into her, uncoordinated, sloppy, and best of all unpredictable. But she was still ' _so_ ' damn fast. Her own fist struck around in rapid succession, striking him over and over. One connected solidly to his jaw, then another cracked his goggles, and fuck her, those were new. He yanked the equipment off his eyes just in time to see her foot come crashing into his head.

Another kick was directed at his midsection, kicked the breath out of him, then his throat, that one he dodged, her fists aimed at his head again. Jason brought his arms up to defend himself from the onslaught as best he could while looking for a way to create an opening. He rushed forward, heedless of the blows he had to sustain to get there, and struck out with a powerful kick of his own. It connected and she went sailing through the air.

Jason pressed his back against the wall, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears as he gulped in deep breaths. She recovered before he did, dragged herself up of the ground, dripping wet and looking all the more pissed off about it to continue her assault.

"Fuck that." Jason switched the knives out for his guns, away from the fight there was no reason for him to keep them down. Bullets flew down the alley, and Marque, she fucking dodged them, by running along the damn walls. Jason fucking hated it when they did that.

Jason traded one of the guns for a knife and kept firing as she got closer. He used his bullets to keep some distance between dashing forwards and taking swipes at her with the knife. On one swipe that went a just a little wide, she grabbed his arm, twisted it and turned the blade back at him. It cut through his own armor as well as anyone else's and pierced his side, just under his ribs. Her follow up kick, knocked him to the ground while the knife was stick in his skin and tore up his side even more, spilling his blood to mix with the filthy water soaking the alley floor. Shit, that was going to hurt like a bitch later, but adrenaline could keep the pain at bay for a while yet.

Jason took aim again, his bullets chasing after her, he got lucky or she was tired out, because a couple of them actually hit their mark, neither of which were lethal unfortunately, and halted her pursuit to duck behind a dumpster.

It gave him room to duck back into the bar, scooping up the lid of a trashcan as he went, Jason got a grenade in hand and pulled the pin. It landed right besides where she was hiding. Marque picked up the explosive before it could blow and tossed it back at him. Jason, ready with the lid, bounced the grenade back at her and ducked inside just as it the deafening BOOM shook the alley, blowing the rain at the point of impact right out of the air.

Ears ringing, Jason looks to where he'd left Stephanie, she's not there, but the blood she'd left on the table is burning up in the fire, so much goddamn blood. Jason's fury comes back full-blown and he stalks out back into the rain, the splashing of the puddles at his feet heralding his approach.

The grenade had detonated mid air, but closer to Marques paltry cover than his. The woman was trying to stand, bleeding in more places than he could count where the shrapnel had gotten her, streaks of crimson mixing in with the water she was lying in. Jason picked her up off the ground and drove his fist into her stomach, dragging a pained grunt out of her. It gave Jason pause, and his hand stilled before another blow could connect, then he remembered Stephanie, lying bruised and bleeding, and helpless to so much as move as she was almost stabbed to death and left to be turned to ashes by that fire.

Marque would have stood there and watched, would have helped Scarab if she'd been paid for it. Jason's fist crashed into the woman's jaw again, then again and again, and he felt the blood splattering onto his face, barely registered the anything else past the green haze clouding his vision until one of his strikes was powerful enough to break his hold on the blood soaked fabric he'd lifted her by. She didn't deserve his pity, didn't deserve to either live or die quickly. He drew his gun and moved staked forwards, indifferent to the hatred and fear in her eyes as she tried to scramble back from him splashing up water to hit him in the face as she went. His boot came down on her again, how many times he didn't count, but by the time he was done, she wasn't moving anymore, just another piece of garbage soaking in the rainwater.

"Don't use weapons." He scoffed. A pity he couldn't take his time, but he still needed to catch up with Scarab, gut her and break her apart like she'd tried to do to Stephanie. Then, then he's take his sweet fucking time. He checked his ammo and took aim, tightened his finger on the trigger.

"No!" The scent of vanilla hit him, how, he couldn't have said, almost before he heard her. Then there was something tightening around his chest, Jason stomped down hard on the reflex that told him to thrown it off him immediately. The arms tightened. "Please stop." Her voice was high, and hitched on each word as if she had to tear them from a barricade in her throat. "Please, please just stop Jason." She shook against him, her head pressed against his spine. His eyes stung and all of the momentum he'd been carrying into the fight, from the race to the city, and through it, through the guards Scarab had left around the perimeter, the desperation he'd felt in the minutes he was sure he wouldn't reach her in time; it all vanished in an instant. "It's enough. I'm okay Jayce, I'm okay, I'm here. Isn't it enough?"

It was enough, it was… Slowly, as though moving too fast would shatter everything, Jason turned around careful not to break the hold.

And there she was; cowl down and soaking wet, her face bloody, purple bruising all along her cheek and neck and likely spread out across the places he couldn't see as well. But she was breathing, she was alive, and breathing and shaking in front of him. It knocked his breath away as well as anything could've and he stood at a loss for words.

Her trembling fingers came up and traced along his mask, feeling along the seams for the clasp. Jason unlatched the thing himself; let it clatter to the ground. Stephanie rested her hands along the sides of his cheeks.

"You were gone." She sobbed and tears, easily distinguished from the thinner droplets of rain, fell from her eyes, cut salty trails through the blood on her cheeks. Jason wrapped his arms around her, pressed her body against his and reveled in the warmth and the feel of her, of having her close to him again, feeling her breaths against his neck and her heartbeat pressed against his own.

"I'm sorry." He choked the words out and pressed his head into her hair, breathed in her scent. He'd almost lost her, she was almost lost and gone and buried and it would have been all… "God I'm so sorry Sunshine." He tightened his hold as much as he dared less he hurt her anymore.

She pulled back, her fingers interlocking behind his neck as she tilted her head up to meet his eyes, freezing him in place with her the brightness in hers, he wondered what she saw in his. She stood on her toes and brought his head closer to hers, her mouth close enough that he could taste the soft puffs of her breath entering his mouth.

It was as though he were in a daze as he let her pull him closer, the idea of doing anything else not even entering into his mind. Then she was pulling back, her face suddenly splattered in even more blood, and his too. Jason stilled, turned his head to follow her gaze.

There was a barbed blade protruding from his shoulder, having come right through from the other side. Briefly, he wondered when that had happened, he was sure he'd gotten Scarab before she'd… Then the blade was yanked out, taking flesh and muscle with it.

Before thinking about it, he grabbed Stephanie and shoved them both aside, right as a barrage of similar blades whizzed through the air, pin cushioning the place where they'd been standing, one striking his arm and another anchoring itself near his collarbone. Marque was up not a second later, and Jason barely had the time to push Stephanie behind him when he saw both of the assassins hands pressed against his abdomen, surrounded by a dark crimson stain.

"You give good advice." She spat at him and drove the blade deeper glaring through her soaking strings of hair hanging over her face.

' _That's my knife…_ ' He thought as he fell back. Something caught him, he could piece together the presence of mind to feel grateful for that at least. "Steph, tell you friend…" He gasped in a breath. "Her sister's… a bitch."

A tattered cape flew overhead, just barely in his field of vision.

What was left of his vision.

Shit.


	29. Fantasy

' _I should have told him_.' She'd almost died and she would have never gotten the chance to let him know. Steph didn't even care about all the rest right then, about everything that had happened since he'd left, what had happened now he was back. She reached up to pull his head down to hers, her body moving on autopilot, then he was bleeding, it took her a second to process that the new warmth on her face was his blood.

Jason grabbed her and moved, Scarabs poisoned blades coming after them. Steph's eyes immediately went to scan the rooftops for the armored assassins, but then Jason was falling, Marque ripping a knife out of him with an ugly smirk splitting her face. It was all Steph could do to catch him, stumbling back into the wall of the narrow alley under his enormous weight.

She didn't have time to worry about the assassins, before a shadow descended out from the darkness of the clouded sky, the golden back on its chest illuminated for just a second by the dim streetlights before it struck Marque, taking the woman with it into the darkness.

"Cass." Steph whispered, her arms tightening around Jason, mind racing, looking for some way other than pressing her filthy cape into the wound to stem the flow of the blood pumping out of his chest, and the poison. Oh god, there was still the poison, and Jason was already trying to get up again.

"Jason no!" She pressed down on his shoulder, trying to get him back down. He'd been stabbed, he couldn't move until, until, oh god how was she going to get him a doctor to move him. A whimper crawled its way out of her chest and her hand instinctively balled over her mouth to block it as her eyes burned up.

"Get away from here." Jason hissed out through gritted teeth gently pushing her away from him with one arm while he brought the other to the bloody patch, wincing and hissing sharply when it met the wound. Steph swallowed, forcing down the sting of his dismissal.

"What are you doing, Jason, you need a doc…" She reached forward to hold him down again, but his arm swept out again to hit hers away from him.

"Go before they see you with me!" Sweat dripping from his face, Jason forced his legs under him and gripped the walls, digging his fingers into the grout as he struggled through the pain to pull himself up, his whole body trembling along with the breaths he sucked in. "Don wanna…" Jason let out a subdued cry as his hand slipped on the glistening wall and the rest of him went along with it.

Before he could fall, Steph had her arm wrapped around his chest, damnit, why did he have to be so big? "I'm not leaving your ass here alone." Steph ground out and put all of her remaining strength into steadying him, the cut on her leg screaming as though someone had doused it in that antidote all over again.

"Damnit Stephanie, this…" A shudder ran through him and he angled his head up just slightly towards the mouth of the alley, from where a tall, dark shadow had blocked out much of the little light they had. "Damnit." He sagged against the wall as another shudder hit, a trail of blood slipping from his lips to fall down his chin.

Steph clenched her jaw and looked up at Bruce, standing there silhouetted against the streetlights, his face cold and impassive as always, the only sign that the rain affected him at all, the fluttering on the barest edges of his heavy cape.

"B, he's not gonna fight, please don't hurt h…" She held out one hand as though that could stop him, the other staying pressed against Jason's chest.

"Move away from him Stephanie." Bruce ordered, not even looking at her, his eyes fixed entirely on Jason as the boy pressed his hand against his bleeding gut, eyes turning cold as the man staring them down.

"No." Steph said, putting more weight onto her uninjured leg in the hopes it would make her seem less likely to fall over. It didn't work out, and she had to use the wall to keep her balance right beside Jason.

A duo of new shadows made themselves know now, another cape fluttering up in the darkened fire escape and someone much lither, nearly silent behind them.

"Move, or _'be'_ moved, Brown." A high voice came from somewhere above their heads.

The change in Jason was instantaneous, his breathing evened out, and his slumped shoulders squared as he brought himself up to almost his full height, a trigger appearing in the hand he wasn't using to support some of his weight against the wall, his finger an inch away from flipping a pale yellow switch. "Touch her and I'll fucking kill you!" His deep voiced boomed in the enclosed space, and he put himself between her and Bruce, the trembling in his body now easy to pass of as rage. Steph gaped at the device, then around the alley, searching for what it would activate.

Bruce jerked in sync with the one behind them, a hand reaching for his utility belt. "Robin, go see to the fire." He ordered. "Now!" There was something to be said about Bruce's tone of voice that Damian didn't protest, the only evidence that the boy did anything at all the feint scrape of his departure.

Dark laughter echoed down from the fire escape and Tim dropped down a couple floors lower. "You were seconds away from beating a woman to death Jason, _'we're'_ not the one's she needs protecting from."

Jason tensed and Steph wrapped her hand around his wrist, between the sleeve of his suit and his gloved to feel his rapid pulse beneath her fingertips. He'd stopped himself, he'd stopped and that was… something.

"Cause you were doing such a stellar fucking job." He spat at the teen. "'F you bastards could pull your heads outta your asses for two minutes, guys like me wouldn't have to step up and do it for you."

"Step up?" Tim snorted. "By killing twenty-three people in two weeks and putting twice as many in the hospital? None of this would have even happened if _'you'_ hadn't run away to go another murder spree. What did you think was going to happen when you made the whole city think she was digging up all that intell on her own?"

"Aw it's cute you think I only killed twenty-three, you use your big-boy detective skills to work that number out or your calculator spit it out at you?" Jason took in a breath that was a little too deep and let out a grimace, but quickly morphed the expression into a grin, all sharp, pink-stained teeth and blood splitting across his face. "And those weren't people, you don't get to do things like that and still call yourself a _'person'_ , so shut up until you know what the hell you're talking about." He didn't look at Tim as he spoke, kept both his eyes on Bruce.

"If everyone did that you'd _'never'_ speak." Tim shot back.

Jason growled low in his throat and Steph sensed that he was about two words away from turning his gun on Tim. She was about to tell him to shut up, but Dick spoke from behind her before she could.

"You sure you can win this fight while you're bleeding out like that?" Dick raised both his hands up fingers which was pretty much an empty gesture as far as things went with them, but it 'was' a gesture at least. Jason shifted to look at the man behind them and the fabric around his wound made a squelching sound that made Stephanie's heart try to climb out of her throat. "We're here to help, so just _'calm down'_ okay."

"Jay, come on, you can't do this now." Steph tugged on his arm, and even that little motion was almost enough to knock him over. "Please don't do this now, you need a doctor, you know you need a doctor. I promise I'll do whatever ever it takes to get you out if they try to lock you away again. You need help, please."

He shifted the hand he had pressed against the blood pumping out of him and winced, his face going very green as he looked between it and her, his mouth working silently as though he just couldn't push the words he needed out of his throat. "They're not taking me to a doctor Sunshine." He whispered eventually. "I can't…"

Steph looked between the three vigilantes boxing them in, but though it was clear they'd heard his quiet admission, none of them made a motion to disprove it. Steph swallowed, her mouth dry as she pushed her face into his arm. She didn't want him locked up again, but she didn't want him to die either, god she didn't want him to die again.

"Jason." Dick called and got both Jason and Stephanie's eyes on him as he slowly peeled away his mask before holding his hands out to them again, he looked at Stephanie, his expression unreadable but not entirely unpleasant before his head cocked to the side just slightly as though something had clicked into place and he spoke again. "We're happy you're alive Jason." Steph felt more that saw the tightening of Jason's muscles. "We just wanna keep you that way right now, okay; we'll talk about the rest later."

"Talk about what." Jason's voice was strained but he still found the energy to grim, wide and bloody and all pink-stained teeth splitting across his face. "I'm not gonna regret putting those animals down, not gonna ' _repent_ ' and let kids like that live knowing the pathetic sacks of filth that hurt em can get at em again. Means more to me than some antiquated moral argument that doesn't fucking apply."

"It's not your place to…" Bruce began, but Jason raised the trigger higher, his thumb moving almost imperceptibly nearer to the switch.

"And where's _'your' place_?!" He demanded pulled himself away from the wall completely, fast enough that Stephanie was shocked into losing the light hold she'd had on him completely.

Tim moved to leap from the fire escape, but Bruce held up a hand, stalling him.

"Where were you when that was happening, when they needed you?" Both his hands were on the gun now, as steady as the rest of him was shaky, liquid pooling at the edges of his eyes. "Things like that don't happen in Gotham, fucked up as it is, ' _that's'_ not supposed to happen on your watch. Where _'were'_ you?" His voice raw and choppy with emotion, more so than Steph had ever heard from him no matter what they'd been talking about.

"Looking for you _'you'_!" Bruce returned his composure dropping as much as the raindrops that slid from his cape as he stepped forward. "Do you have any idea what we thought was happening to you! What she let us believe!" He jabbed a finger at Stephanie, who pulled back, as Jason shifted to cover more of her from Bruce's eyes. "

"Oh, so it's all my fault again?" Jason huffed out a sound that was almost a chuckle. "Cause of course it's always _'my'_ fault when you screw up. Stop pretending you give a fuck, you and your little soldiers, all you care about is some abstract moral picture. You don't give a crap about kids like that, cause they're never gonna grow up good, right? They're broken, so they're never gonna be perfect, or good, just more food for your little angst party." His breathing was getting raspy, and there was a cloudiness over his eyes that, along with the numerous blows she'd endured to the skull, made Steph feel nauseous, light headed.

"Jason stop!" Stephanie said, noting the way Bruce was tensing up again, and so did Jason. But Jason didn't stop; he gave her only the barest glance to show that he'd even heard her and kept right on, almost like he was fishing for another fight.

"And hey…" his voice was soft and barely even intelligible, garbled as all hell, but he still managed to inject into it every ounce of spite he needed for his next words. "Maybe in a couple years you send em a nice little message' bout how every choice they ever make in life doesn't count for shit cause they're too fucked up to ever matter."

Steph didn't know what happened first, Jason slipping, all of his weight falling into the wall, then her, Bruce rushing forwards, or Dick appearing between them, staring unerringly into the barrel of the gun Jason had drawn prepared to fire.

"Get the fuck outta my way Dickie-Bird." Jason spat the words out as if they were venom, with the poison still rushing through Jason's system they might well have been.

"No, Jason listen, I'm sorry all of this happened to you, but now is ' _not'_ the time." Dick looked over Jason's shoulder, looked at Steph, but what he was trying to convey she couldn't quiet place. "You can shout all you want later, but right now, you need to get the hole in your gut seen to before you bleed out, and so does ' _she_ '."

Not the best time for her to be reminded that she still had blood tricking down her leg and the gaping hole she had from being knifed in the shoulder was beginning to flare up again, demanding she take note of it. Adrenaline was a bitch when it started wearing off.

"Sunshine?" Jason reluctantly dragged his eyes off Dick, and back to Stephanie, they roved over her body and Steph got the idea that he was undressing her in a very different matter than every guy ever, the bruises hidden under her suit, throbbing painfully to life as though him recognizing they were there reminded them of the fact themselves.

"It's just a doctor, right?" She pressed her head against his arm, taking in the warmth that radiated off him despite the cold autumn rain pouring out all around them. "You can get outta a hospital east, right, and if you can't I'll help you, I'll do whatever it takes, please Jay. I don't wanna lose you again."

Lowering his gun, the last bit of resistance faded from his eyes and Jason nodded, just once, just barely a tip of his head, but as though it had been a scream, both Dick and Bruce stepped forward, each to take one of Jason's arms and, with grunts of effort, pull his not inconsiderable weight away from the wall. Steph wondered if they were relieved as she's been when she'd noticed he'd put on all that bulk after his stint in Jeremiah's basement had left him so wafer this, she wondered if they'd even realized.

They pulled him away from her, and it took barely a second for her to start shivering without the warmth of his body pressed against her. Tim dropped to her side in his place, and offered Steph his arm without a word. Jason looked back over his shoulder, and seeing as how it would defy the whole point of asking Jason to accept their help if she didn't, she let Tim pull her up and help her stay on her feet too.

She looked at the entrance to The Dive as they passed it by, now spewing just a little smoke and heat into the night, her eyes catching on something glinting in the embers. She could still make out some of the furniture that had yet to be eaten by the blaze she'd caused, covered by the sticky foam that came standard with every bat-utility belt. Steph figured that was where Damian had been sent off to. That fire hadn't proved to help her at all. It would be gone soon, all of it. Steph felt a pang in her chest for the place where she'd really gotten to know Jason, where he'd, the place where he'd somehow started to trust her.

This was what the owner would be coming home to when he got out of prison, just a burned out handful of useless rooms on one of the worst parts of the city. Would they even have the money to rebuild, or like the planetarium, would it just sit an empty husk of a place for years?

If she hadn't been watching the door, she might now have predicted what happened next.

Bruce clicked on his comm and told Alfred to ready the cave's medbay before they arrived.

"The cave?" Jason tensed as if they'd announced they were dropping him off at death row. Before anyone could make a reply, he'd unlatched something from his belt and a very different kind of smoke filled the alley.

Tim pulled Steph away, pressed the both of them against the wall and wrapped their heads in his cape, no time for searching out their rebreathers before it hit them, and even through the special made fabric, it ' _burned'_. Steph's eyes and her lungs when she made the mistake of sucking in a breath to try talking. Bruce and Dick, at the source were struck immobile by what was probably the most concentrated tear gas they'd ever come across. She heard them cry out, calling for Jason.

Even before she considered breaking away from Tim, leaving the little shelter they had, when she heard Bruce and Dick trying to pursue despite the fire clogging their lungs, she knew it would be too late.

By the time the smoke had cleared, so had Jason.

He was gone, again, and Steph was getting real tired of that happening.

O

O

O

The rain broke into a full-blown storm not long after, battering the sky's with thunder and lightning that rattled the city's inhabitants to their bones.

From the tiny, sterile room in Leslie's clinic, Steph was no different, numb as she was from the painkillers as she got her leg stitched up.

At first doctor had tried to make conversation for a while, asking about Steph's mother and the classes she hadn't attended for days, but Steph hadn't been able to answer any of them to any degree of satisfaction. So the now, the room was bathed in silence, punctuated only by Leslie's disproving muttering as she snipped away still more fabric from Steph's suit. It suited the girl fine, gave her more of her now limited brainpower to direct at the stare down she'd somehow gotten herself into with a very red-eyed Dick Grayson.

Turned out the tear gas had come from a canister Jason had pulled out of his pocket, the trigger hadn't even had batteries.

Steph's eyes were doing much better than his were at least, but they were still almost as red, though for a different but not unconnected reason. There'd been someone with her in the room for as long as she'd been there, first Tim while they'd waited for Leslie to finish with another patient, then Damian when the old woman had made her opinions on Steph's wounds known, and now Dick. Like they thought Jason was going to pop up out of nowhere again, like he would have been able to make it all the way to the clinic when he was poisoned and bleeding and…

Steph's breathing hitched and only the jab of pain when from the stitches when she tried to curl up prevented her from doing so. The hostility in the eyes she had locked with Dick's went up a couple notches, and he folded his arms.

"Didn't think you were the kind who liked watching girls a decade younger than you getting their clothes cut off ' _Batman_ '." She rolled her eyes at him, and turned her eyes to the room's tiny window, and the rain pounding against the glass.

"We're not leaving you alone again." Dick said with a huff, as though she were Damian when he was being obtuse.

"Well I'm not running from creepy ninjas right now and I don't think Jason'll show up for anything less right now, so can you clock out before I lose my shirt?"

"Fine." Dick sighed and held up in hands in a placating gesture, as he backed out the room.

Steph had a few seconds to be relieved about him being gone, not having to deal with them watching her like one of the screens of the homing beacons in the cave before the door opened again and someone new stepped in.

Cass offered no words of greeting, and neither did Steph as Leslie cut away the suit at her shoulder and began cleaning out the deep gash in her shoulder.

The old woman sent Steph a glare that would have made Steph's insides shrivel up a little if not for the fact that Steph's insides were as shriveled as they could have gotten. She got another anesthetic shot for that one, and some tut-tutting about her being lucky something about how the poison kept the muscles from tearing more and making her need surgery. Yay for Steph.

When Leslie left, the rainy weather having brought on flu season early apparently, Cass stayed behind and Steph, now alone with the other girl, could feel the full brunt of Cass's see all eyes. It was kind of relieving in a way, not having to worry about what kind of things were being read off her, what kind of body language she was putting out when she knew there was nothing she could have done to hide from Cass. And it could have been worse after all, could have been Bruce watching her.

Steph curled her good leg up onto the bed and carefully maneuvered the other one up against some cushions. "He's not gonna come, you know." She said, listening to the rain and leaving out her musings about whether or not Jason even got out of the rain, if he'd gotten someone to help him. "Probably out of the city by now if he coulda found a way." She hugged her knee to her chest. "Probably never coming back. And I can't find him, or call him for you, cause he already blew up his phone, so you're really wasting your time here Cass."

Steph scrubbed a hand over the blood dried to her hair and sighed, rolling her head back to look at the ceiling as Cass stepped forward, anger laced stoicism on her face having softened, of only a little as she pulled her own cellphone out the pocket of her too big hoody.

"It was him?" She asked, sitting down on the bed besides Steph and angling the screen of the phone so they could both see as she scrolled through texts from a number she'd named simply 'friend', laden with emojis and the sporadic wall of text beneath a string of memes Cass had sent out.

"Yeah." Steph's lips curled up at the ends as she read an explanation of what Kermit the frog was and why captioned pictures of him were supposed to be funny. There was a link at the bottom that judging by the URL, led to some not quite legal method of watching a muppets movie, because of course Jason wouldn't have pointed her at any non-criminal options.

Cass nodded and scrolled down some more texts before pressing the phone against her chest. "Didn't tell them either." She said, looking at the door where at least one of her brothers had to be waiting. "Because, maybe it wasn't him, and they lost the..." she shook the phone, "Proof that he was here. Maybe he wouldn't want to talk to me anymore if I let them see, and if it wasn't Jason, then… why? He was gone already, wanted to ask, but…" She scrolled to the bottom of the chat, this time without letting Steph see. "No reply."

Steph leaned in to get the contents of her utility belt they'd left her with. Knickknacks, cards, and other random things that didn't have anything to do with being Batgirl. The last of Jason's sparkly IOU's were among them, now bent severely out of shape. Steph had saved this one for last, because she'd thought the colors were prettier that the others. Now glitter was missing from it in patches, and one corners was soaked in the blood that had dripped in from her leg.

"He gave me this, they're like Jason money." She said, trying to straighten the card without losing anymore glitter. "Three actually, but I used one to get me a frenzy sample and one to keep from leaving Gotham after I found that room, he found that room, said he couldn't leave till we solved the case. Shoulda used this one before he left." Steph rubbed her knuckles over her burning eyes, stupid Jason and his stupid tear gas. "Shoulda been more specific."

"At home." Cass drew her legs onto the bed as well, ballet flats and all, and tucked her knees under her chin. "Everyone was saying the all the time, 'What if I was there,' 'What if I found him,' 'What if I didn't leave him'. They watched, not the bad tapes." She sighed softly and laid her head on her knees to look at Steph. "Oooold tapes, when he was…" She held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Little. They cry. Not with sound, but…" she pressed her hand against Steph's chest. "Inside. Everyone thinks it's their fault, always with the ' _what if'_. Always hurting. It hurts to watch them, but I can't… leave them."

There was nothing Steph could have said that she hadn't said already, nothing Cass said that she hadn't already known, so she said nothing, just tried to sink a little more into the mattress. Well, she hadn't known about the older tapes, what the little Jason in them could have been doing. Not school plays seeing as how Jason hadn't been allowed to join stage crew, but what else. What kind of home movies did ' _The Batman'_ take?

"You don't need to tell them ' _It's because you left him_.' They say it to themselves. Bruce and Dick, and Alfred." She looked down at her screen again. "Barbara. You say it to yourself too. Don't need to."

"Because they're saying it too?" Steph asked, running her hand along the stitches on her leg.

"Hmmm." Cass nodded, and Steph chuckled as Cass serious expression quirked a little, the older girl rocking back. "I'm thinking. What will he say when they find him."

"They won't." Steph said, turning her cad over in the light, watching the glitter sparkle.

"Will." Cass put the phone back in her pocket. "His clothes were Society. Bruce asked for help. Friends, to find him from the ' _league'._ Two, they will find him."Steph's heart seemed to be torn between coming up through her that's and sinking deeper into her chest. It compensated by beating like a war drum in her chest. Jason couldn't fight the justice league, not on his own and if he tried, if they showed up out of nowhere while he was hurt… If they didn't ' _know_ ' he was hurt. Steph looked at Cass, searching for some kind of lie, or for Cass's reasoning behind telling Stephanie about any of this otherwise. Cass hopped off the bed, easy as though she hadn't been worked half to death as much as the rest of them. "Maybe you'll find him first and hide him again."

"Cass I don't know where he is, he broke his phone I told you, you know I'm not lying, I can't find him." Steph tried to jump to her feet as well and winced when all she succeeded in doing was popping a stitch in her leg.

Cass hummed again and squinted at Jason's IOU still clutched tightly in Steph's fingers. "Then you won't help him." And she walked calmly over to the door, shutting it silently behind her.

Steph brought a hand to her hair, her nails digging into her scalp as she stared at the door, then back to the card. It was about as useful right then as the rocket launcher he'd left for her, or the pretty silver hair stick.

She didn't have any friends in the Justice League, no one she could ask for help. No resources but a bunch of crooks that not only weren't likely to be scared of her anymore, but even less likely to know anything. She could have searched the hospitals and clinics, but she had a feeling the others were already doing that, and they'd be done with it before Steph could even start with her stupid leg stitched up like Frankenstein's bride.

She looked back to her junk sitting scattered in the bedside table, the same one where Jason had left the IOUs in the first place. Some candy, and pins and the few business cards she'd collected and promptly forgotten about. Her attention fell on the only one that didn't seem crinkled beyond all repair. Laminated to withstand doomsday – both the actual day and the indestructible alien – and marred only with some half-melted skittle stuck to the plastic.

If the Justice League caught Jason, they'd either lock him up, or hand him over to Bruce. If they didn't it would only be because he went so deeply into hiding that they nobody ever heard from him again. No matter what, she'd never see him again, they'd never let her see him again.

She picked the card up gingerly, as though it could have exploded in her hands at any second.

Talia. ' _She's there'_ , Jason had said. She's there, and assuming he was using his contractions properly, he's meant present tense, meaning there was a chance she was there right now. If he was really with The Society, and she _'ran'_ The Society…

Steph studied the card, the neat set of numbers printed along one side and an advertisement for a laundromat. "Oh god." She whispered, feeling much like she had the very first time she'd sassed Batman, only about a hundred times worse. Bad idea, bad, bad, ' _baaaaaaaad'_ idea. "Oh god." She whispered again and dropped off the bed so she could feel out the steel bowl and loose the little grape soda she had in her stomach.

"Oh god."

There was no way she was just letting Jason disappear on her again.

O

O

O

"Don't hang up." Not the most eloquent greeting, but she'd had a hell of a time convincing Leslie to sneak her out of the clinic without the bats hearing, and even a heller of a time during the days she'd spent trying to dodge them without being too obvious about trying to dodge them with her bum leg. She ' _could not'_ find another untapped phone booth in time if this didn't pan out.

Stephanie could practically see the 'not an eye roll because Talia was too sophisticated for that' through the phone. _'You have two minutes.'_

Great, two whole minutes to convince scary tiger lady into letting helping her without making said tiger lady want her head on a bedazzled spike.

"So, you'll remember you never gave me a deadline on the whole,' find Jason for a favor' thing way back when?" Steph's voice sounded really high to her own ears, she hoped it sounded normal on the other end of the phone, she really, really hoped so, but it was a faraway kind of hope. Like getting a cellphone for her tenth birthday. "Any chance that's still on, cause I figured this number wouldn't work if it wasn't, and I'm kinda, really interested in making a deal here."

' _You assume you were significant enough to necessitate an entirely new number for your individual use._ ' There was a sot chink on the other end, a spoon in a teacup if Steph knew her al Ghul's. ' _You have nothing to offer me.'_

"Not like you offered ' _me'_ anything when you made me give him that folder, or when I kept my mouth shut about the little birthday tea party you threw him." Steph tried desperately to keep her voice level as she spoke, squared her shoulders and tried to activate her 'Barbara voice' – kind of hard when the real Barbara hated her guts right then. "You went through a whole lot of trouble to hide all that and I bet there's ' _some'_ reason you don't want everyone to know about it all. I don't know what it is, but the bats are real mad at me right now and it couldn't hurt winning them over with that. You're not giving me much reason to not get back into their good graces by having Bruce bust down your door."

' _Yet you give me every reason to have the snipers tailing you take their shots.'_

"Just spitballing here, but I'll bet Jason being pissed at you's enough of a reason." Steph said, eyes darting along the rooftops now not only for capes, but hidden snipers as well. Wow she hoped Talia really did like Jason enough for that to be a good reason, that Talia believed he liked Steph enough for it to be a good reason. "Bet you'da had me in Gotham harbor already otherwise."

' _You're a brash, near-sighted child, return to your home now and I might forget about you again.'_ Talia's cold detached tone was wavering, Steph hadn't decided yet if that was a good thing.

"And you're wasting my two minutes." Steph leaned against the glass walls of the phone booth. "Come on, he got stabbed, and poisoned by the stuff _'your'_ people use. If they find him before me, he's in a lot of trouble. I'm not asking you to help me, I'm asking you to help him, please. He could be dead already and you're too busy being an ass to care."

' _That he needs help now is your doing. Had you not decided to meddle at the start those imbeciles running that asylum would have never bothered with him to the extent they had, neither would he have thrown himself into a conflict he has no place in. Were he to have died, make no mistake, I would have had you in your grave already.'_ The unidentifiable sound Talia let out was cut off abruptly along with any background noise that had been filtering though the phone, but there was no dial tone signaling they'd been disconnected.

Steph had a couple seconds to be confused about it before the sound of the teacup was back. _'Unfortunately you're correct in that he's become too attached to you, and he might be more inclined to listen to reason were it coming from you, assuming you're capable of reason. If you cause him any more harm after this information leaves my lips I have the means of drawing out the worst suffering you can imagine indefinitely, do you understand?'_

"Yeah, shovel talk; I get it, so where do we start looking here?" Steph pushed down the desire for a bucket to empty her stomach into again, then made the mistake of trying to pin the phone between her cheek and shoulder and ended up aggravating the stab wound she hadn't taken enough painkillers for. She really hoped Talia didn't hear that yelp.

Talia muttered something in Arabic that Steph didn't catch, and she was sure she was better off for it, before Talia rattled off an address, and a random string of numbers, and then hung up on her.

"Well okay then. You have a nice day too Talia." Steph slammed her phone back into its place and collected the change that clinked out. She doubted she was going to get much in the way of her Batman Inc allowance any time soon.

O

O

O

Getting dressed with a whole surgical ward's worth of bandages wrapped around your torso was hard. Doing it fast and well enough to not look like you had that surgical ward's worth of bandages wrapped around your torso was nigh impossible. And the shirt chafing against the bandages, chafing against his stitches really didn't help things any.

He ignored the voices at the back of his head that told him he wasn't even supposed to be moving, let alone trying to lift the duffle bag over his shoulder, because two hours was ' _barely_ ' enough time to pack up and move even under normal circumstances. He knelt down to secure the strap and held his breath when he stood, and promptly popped a stitch. He bit down on his fist to subdue keep his mouth from expressing that pain and took in a few deep breaths until he felt like he could go on as he took the cellphone out of his pocket.

The motion sensors had been going off at a steady pace since that morning, not fast, but then he wasn't exactly fast right then either. He could already hear light footsteps ascending the stairway. There was barely any time left for him to…

"You know, for a guy with a reputation for never backing down, you've sure got a knack for running away."

Jason sighed through his teeth and dropped the bag the thump it made when it hit the ground of the empty hallway seeming loud even against the storm that was raging just two feet past the doorway he'd stopped in front of. Speaking of storms.

"You shouldn't be here." He turned slowly, to watch her storming across the empty warehouse floor towards him. "If Bat's and the gang find you, you're…" He flung up his arm to block the hand she'd swung at his face, he could feel the sting even through the multiple layers of clothing and he was unspeakably glad for that.

She was dressed in a baggy hoody and sweats that were stained and one knee with the blood that had seeped through from the leg she was keeping her weight off. Stupid to climb that many stairs with stitches, but he wasn't exactly in a position to judge. There was still some bruising on her face, but the blood had been washed out of her hair, and she was glaring at him with a fire that was pissed beyond measure but she was ' _alive'_. He wanted to reach out for her, press his fingers against her pulse and feel it, just to be sure, but he held himself back.

"You shouldn't have left, you said you'd stay and you left me." She said, the soft treble of her voice echoing painfully in the empty, narrow hallway. Two steps, he was two steps against the door and now it might as well have been a mile in the sky for all he could reach it.

"No way I was gonna keep a dozen dead asshats a secret." He knelt down to sling the strap of his duffle over his good shoulder again; give him some thing to do even if it meant nothing, something that wasn't looking at her, asking if she was okay, if she needed a ride home, somewhere to sit for a while. "Didn't exactly have a ton of choices there."

"You ' _chose'_ to lie to me." Her hands were shaking, balled into fists at her sides, was a all the poison out of her system, he'd given her as much of the antidote as he'd thought was safe, should he have given her a little more? "I know I'm not as good at words as you Jason, but far as I know, 'We'll talk later,' isn't a synonym for, 'Killed a bunch of people gotta run, bye.'" Her words stung, hit some part deep inside him and made it clench sharply enough to make him flinch. The forced cheerful tone she injected into her words made it even worse. "Do you 'know' how much that hurt? Trying to call you after that and you were just…" she brushed a hand over her eyes. "Gone. Why did you..."

"Because they were ' _monsters_ '! Ya think I did that cause I ' _wanted_ ' to?" Try as he might, Jason couldn't; regret what he'd done, just thinking about it made bile rise up his throat, brought images to his mind that tinged his vision green. But for the first time, there was something warring with the green and the fire and in some ways, it was even harder to push back. Jason could just barely fight against the impulse to reach out for her, to dispel even the idea that he'd done what he had deliberately, to hurt her, because that was what he did wasn't it? What she would have been told from the very beginning. "Course ya did, cause Jason's a psychopath, he goes around ' _looking_ ' for monsters to turn inside out, cause he thinks it's _'fun'_ and that's why he turned into one, cause he wanted it, and he ' _wants_ ' to hurt everything he gets close to!"

"Then what ' _do_ ' you want?!" Like it was so easy, like that was all it took.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT I WANT!"

She flinched and so did Jason, his voice sounding too loud even to his own ears, magnified by the size and the emptiness of the building they were standing in, louder even than the thunder and the lighting crackling in the skies above their heads. His eyes burned and he turned away from her, damnit, the last time it had been that hard to breath he'd been in another universe, what was wrong with him?

The touch was cold, and Jason pulled back instinctively before he saw what it was, but didn't break away. She was right in front of him, her hand pressed against his cheek, cool and calloused, when had she gotten this close to him? His hand made it halfway to hers, to push it away or hold it in place, he didn't know, before she spoke and it stopped where it was.

"It matters to me." Her voice was a whisper, but somehow still louder than his scream had been. He looked down at her, so, so close. He'd been so sure he'd never be this close to her again. He couldn't smell vanilla, just antiseptic and rain but the scent still trickled in at the back of his mind. Her eyes, deep blue and wide and earnest, drawing him in and terrifying him all at once, locking him in place with an emotion he couldn't read. Or, more specifically, and emotion he'd forgotten how to read a long time ago.

"Why?" He asked, head dropping, his hand slowly, shakily coming up to cover the one she had pressed to his cheek. "I've never done…, " He tried to turn away and found he couldn't, "anything to deserve it."

"What do you want, Jason?" She repeated her question, stepping closer to him, sucking even more of the air out of is burning lungs. "The Jason who hangs around bars, and reads complains about explosions in movies, and risked getting bitten by ' _wolf spiders'_ to look at the stars with me." She sniffed and brushed aside some liquid before it could fall from her eyes, a wobbly smile trying to carve its way onto her lips. "What does he want?"

"He wants…" He didn't know what he wanted, hadn't known for such a long time that he'd forgotten what he'd ever wanted in the first place. It was surreal, like the blurred weeks of blood and green fire that became all too vivid in his dreams. Like waking up to strands of gold almost splayed across his chest, in that pastel clinic room, almost shining in the small patch of sunlight had been. Like when he'd found himself wishing he could have stayed in that bed forever if it had meant… And then he'd run, because she was right, and that was what he did, wasn't it? He ran, and like an idiot he came back. He wanted… he didn't want to run anymore.

Jason looked up, back into her eyes, and before he could think about it, before he could come up with a reason not to, he leaned in closer, moving his good hand from hers to cup the back of her head. She let out a gasp, and he stopped, pulled back when he was less than an inch from her. He couldn't, whatever he was doing, he knew there was no way of knowing when she…

Perhaps more surreal than anything else in his life, she closed the gap her herself.

Jason stumbled back against the force of her crashing into him, her lips meeting his, cool but warm. His back hit the wall besides the door, close enough for the rain to reach them, hard enough that it send a twinge of pain through the wounds under his ribs that was a barely an echo in the back of his mind.

She was shivering still, pulled her closer wrapped his arms around her to share the almost unbearable heat he had rushing through his body. Her hand traced along his collarbone, higher to the thick scar along his neck and he pulled her closer still. He shouldn't have, he knew he shouldn't have, this wouldn't fix anything, if anything it would make it more difficult, more impossible than it already was, but everything else just felt so far away right then.

Her mouth tasted of candy, sweet and fruity, he pulled back for just a second, just long enough to smell it on her breath, and she'd closed the distance between the again. One of her hands, gripping the back of his neck, her nails scraping against the skin just hard enough to feel, the other trialing over his back, tracing along the bandages wrapped around him, then coming back around catching the hand he'd settled on her hip without even realizing it.

He wanted to go home again, whatever that was, to lace her fingers with his, hold her just like this and run his hands through her hair, damp but still so soft, the strands wrapping around his fingers when he tilted her head up to deepen the kiss. He traced the bandaged on her shoulder, bandaging covering where Black Mask had scarred her with a bullet and now Scarab with a poisoned blade.

It was dangerous, he knew it was, being there, fueling the fantasy that he could stay with her forever, like he had all the months before when he'd almost convinced himself it could have been a reality. This didn't change anything, didn't wipe away what he'd done, but then, right then with his arms wrapped around her, he wanted it to believe it could. Almost more than he'd wanted anything in either of his lives, than he'd wanted his mother to stop with the needles, than he wanted the scar on his neck to disappear.

God, he wanted it so badly it hurt, to be with her and feel he wasn't alone, he didn't need to be alone, even if it was a fantasy, even if it didn't last, it was worth it. He ' _needed_ ' it.

Her fingers dug into his back, he held her tighter, and he found he couldn't think at all.

 _ **xxx**_

 _ **Xxx**_

 _ **Don't like writing the mushy stuff, takes me forever, that's this lateness' excuse.**_


	30. Change

The air in the cave was heavy, it had been heavy for a long time already, emotions sticking to the rock even when there weren't any people there to radiate it. Cass didn't like it, missed the warmth that she'd started expecting whenever she came back from China.

She didn't like it all; the times she'd walked into the cave and found that someone was watching the tapes of the man strapped to the table, screaming out his pain and desperation even when he was silent. She didn't like seeing those emotions reflected off the ones watching the tapes. Only, with them, it didn't go away when the screen turned black. They carried it with them wherever they went, out in the field, or around their home when they tried to pretend it didn't hurt anymore.

Eventually they didn't pretend anymore and just tried all the time to make it stop but it would only stop when they found him. It stayed with Cass too, even when she left Gotham to look back in on Hong Kong, it stayed. Eventually Cass couldn't bring herself to leave either. She wanted to find the man, and make him stop hurting, so her family would stop hurting. She stayed in Gotham, and she tried to help, but they never found him.

Not until Scarab hurt Stephanie. Cass had been following, but she had been late by a short time. The man caught them first.

Cass remembered watching him fight Marque, vicious and familiar. It was so familiar, Cass had watched, unable to move herself forward even when the rest of them, getting closer, told her to get closer. There was no pain or desperation this time.

When she saw him move to kill, Cass had prepared to move in, but Stephanie appeared from the smoky doorway before she could. Cass didn't want her friend to get in that man's path, but she was too far away to even call out, she couldn't stop it.

She didn't have to.

He didn't lash out when Stephanie reached him, when she spoke to him and touched him, he stopped, every screaming thing about him, he was still, and then he ' _melted'_. She wondered if Stephanie saw it, the, Cass didn't have a word for it falling off him, like the bitter, bad tasting icing she'd had to take off her cake the last time one of Bruce's business partners took her to lunch.

Still there was no pain, just relief, and something else, something she didn't get to see much of when she worked. It was… nice.

She shouldn't have wanted to watch it, not when Marque was still moving, and Scarab was somewhere nearby. But she had, and not he was gone again, and the tension in the cave was back.

It wasn't as bad as it was before, but that didn't mean she liked it, she wanted it to go away completely now.

Dick and Tim were fighting, softly, even if they thought they were alone. She didn't do anything to tell them they weren't, she was half-asleep in Bruce's big chair in front of the humming computer, but she watched them through her half lidded eyes anyway just in case they tried to hurt each other like Bruce and Dick had before.

"I said it was too dangerous, do you _'know'_ by how much her bounty went up after that?" Tim was pacing, his hands gripped tightly behind his back as he struggled to keep himself from flailing them about.

"We weren't expecting to hear back this soon anyway." Dick was sitting in another chair, letting it spin his round in slow, lazy circles. "If she saw someone following her, she wouldn't have gone to find him."

"If she hasn't found him anyway, if someone found _'her'_?" Tim paused, his thumb disappearing between his teeth. "If she did find him?"

"Cass said…"

"Cass isn't omniscient." Tim did flail his arms out this time and Cass, though she wasn't sure of the word exactly, was mildly offended anyway. She was just too tired to get up and do something about it. Maybe the next time they sparred.

Jason wasn't going to hurt ' _Stephanie_ ', of that much Cass had been sure, sure enough to voice the belief to the rest of them, sure enough that they'd all believed her. The others though… Cass curled a little tighter into the chair, buried her face in the soft leather that stilled smelled of kevlar, and very faintly of blood. Her sleepy eyes drifting to the knife she'd wrestled from Marque, dropped besides the console where it had been left, no one either caring, or daring to move it.

Eventually both Dick and Tim went upstairs, taking their words with them, leaving Cass to try to continue her nap in peace.

It took hours for the Batmobile to pull into the cave, the roar of the engine sending the few bats that remained at night shrieking. By the time Bruce made for his chair, Cassandra was already drooling over the armrests, dead to the world.

He sighed, and carefully rolled the chair to the side, turning it from the glare of the computer and pulling out one of the smaller ones before he got back to work.

o

o

o

Stephanie hadn't been expecting some monumental change when she'd gone looking for Jason. She didn't know what it was she had been expecting, and truthfully, she might have tried her hardest not to think about it at all beyond him needing to know that Bruce was calling in help to find him. That and her needing to know that he hadn't bled out in some filthy street somewhere – his blasé attitude concerning that last part wasn't comforting in the least.

A part of her, the part that remembered the dangerous glint in his eyes and the almost casual way he'd stalked over to kill Scarab in that bar, might have needed to see for herself that this was her Jason and not that one.

But when she woke up in that tiny, sparsely furnished room, hidden deep beneath Gotham's oldest, lead-lined streets, she hadn't expected the déjàvu either. For a panicked moment, she worried that he'd disappeared again, run of despite his promise – and this time there ' _had'_ been a promise – not to.

Then she made out the shape of him in the near dark, outlined dimly against the pale, bluish glow of the screen propped up on his knees. He was turning a big brown envelope over in his hands, his lips silently mouthing out words she didn't hear, and there was a muted, tapping that turned out to be his heel against the base of the bed he was nestled at the foot of, the warmth radiating off his leg, reaching through the blankets that covered Stephanie.

Steph shifted and pain shot through her leg, pulling a hiss from her lips. In a second, the laptop was down, and light flooded the room, Jason leaping up of the bed to kneel besides it.

"You okay there Sunshine?" He asked, as she pulled herself to a sitting position, bringing along her pillow to hide her face from the brightness with a groan. "Feeling the stairs you shouldna run up with that leg?"

"Shut up Jason." She brought the pillow down just enough to glare at him, with his stupid messy curls and the bright, playful gleam in his teal eyes, confidence undercut with just a smidgen of uncertainty that made itself known by the crease of his brow. "You feeling the popped stitches form being an idiot and picking up your stupid duffle bag the knives you took to the gut?"

"Was the same knife." He snorted and stood, an arm crossing over his torso where he was wrapped up with an amount of bandages she knew he was unhappy with. "My knife, hope they caught her so I can get the thing back. 'F they don't shove it in a case."

"So sad." Steph untangled the blankets from her legs, wincing at the stinging that came along with so much as twitching the limb. "Toss my jacket here." She made grabby hands at the damp parka draped over a self near the door and way too far for her to think about retrieving it herself if she didn't have to.

Her shoulder pain was still within the easy to ignore range, but her leg was screaming at her. Jason turned way when she pulled the bottle of pain meds she'd gotten out of the pocket and filled a glass of water at his little sink. She hummed her thanks as she quickly swallowed the pills and stashed the bottle away.

"Did you…" She paused, hugging the jacket to her chest, and not bothering to meet his eyes when he was looking at the floor. "Y'know, need anything?" She was pretty sure Jason wasn't supposed to be up with how he'd been hurt, even if she wasn't quite confident enough to think she could make him lay down. Whoever patched him up had to have given him ' _some'_ kind of medication.

"Had it when I needed it." He shot her a quick smile. "Was wearing a crap ton more armor than you." He took the two steps back to the narrow buck and dropped down to sit beside her.

Slowly Steph brought her hands up, watching him for a reaction before she let them wrap around his chest, above the bandages, and press her body up against his. "I burned down the dive." She admitted her face buried in his shirt. "Now you're gonna have to live off cans of spam forever."

"I hate spam." Jason said, bumping his forehead against hers. "But, ya know, I got… I got priorities and you're… Mighta been too late 'f ya hadn't." He returned her embrace, his body trembling as he held on to her, one hand cradling her head and the other settling against the small of her back. "Thought I was too late when I saw you and you were so…" His breath hitched and his hold on her tightened. "So still. Was almost too late, 'm so sorry."

Before Steph could say anything, could remind him how there wasn't much he could have done to prevent what had happened, his posture shifted, not by much, but it was enough to be noticeable, and when he spoke next his voice was steely, determined.

"I'm gonna find that poser and drag him screaming through a fucking snow blower for pulling that. Make every insect that crawls outta these sewers see what they get if…"

"Jason no." Stephanie pulled away and placed her hands on either side of his head, holding it between them and making him look at her, his eyes wide and startled. "If you drag anyone through anything, it won't be for me, I don't ' _want'_ that, okay, I don't want you to do that." She fought back the prickling of tears at the corners of her eyes, refused to let them fall, to let her fall to far back into the thought of how terrifying witnessing something like that would be, of knowing it was for her… "Please don't do that."

He studied her expression, eyes scouring for any cracks in her conviction, a sign that she wasn't sincere, it took him a few seconds, but the tension in his shoulders slipped away and he nodded once, took her hands from his face and cradled them in his bringing them to his lips. "Okay Sunshine." He said. "Figure Batgirl can fight her own battles there huh?"

There must have been something, something she didn't have time to catch when that little reminder sent a stab through her chest that pain meds could do nothing for, that caught his attention, because his head shot up, sharp focus jumping to the surface when he fixed his eyes on hers again. "What did they do?"

"Not Batgirl anymore." Steph said, a sad smile curling up the edges of her lips, and wow, it was getting time to process that now, wasn't it? She wasn't taking the suit off until she found Jason, that was what she had said, and now she had, and the suit was gone.

"Be, is it because I showed up at The Dive, or…" He ran a hand through his hair, making even more of a mess of the already mussed curls, his eyes flickering rapidly back and forth.

"Wasn't anything you did." Steph chuckled mirthlessly, getting his eyes focused on her again. "S'okay, I knew they wouldna let me stay on after everything." There was so much going on already, so much they already had to process, Steph didn't want to deal with that yet, didn't want to think about it, or all the things she could have done differently to change the outcome, if any of them would have been worth it. Worth, the trust, and the place in the group that she'd worked so hard for so long to get into, she couldn't find many that were, and even then, the risks were just...

"S'not okay." He said, running his thumbs over her palms, his head hung low. He met her eyes, just briefly before turning away, and releasing her hands. "They're all dumbasses, you were the most kickass Batgirl ever, 's their loss."

"You're biased Jay." She turned away too, her cheeks heating up and a more genuine smile finding a place on her face anyway. "You don't even know the others."

"I've never been biased in my life." He scoffed, affronted the gleam flitting back into his eyes. "You're the second most kickass person, an that makes you best Batgirl by default."

"And I bet _'you're'_ the most kickass person ever, huh?" Steph raised an eyebrow and folded her arms over her chest that almost ached with something that was almost giddiness.

"Aw, you're makin' me blush Sunshine." Jason grinned at her, so confident and boyish with his messy hair and his bright eyes, he was there with her, neither of them bleeding, or locked away, and he'd… Oh god she still hadn't processed that he'd kissed her yet either had she?

She covered her mouth to hide her returning grin and turned away from him again, the aching in her chest having doubled as she fought down the laughter she could feel building up.

"Hey." Jason leaned over to see catch her eyes; worry having crept back into his, one hand stopping just short of reaching for her again.

There was still so much they had to go through, so much they needed to talk about, to work through and deal with, so much they didn't agree on and so many people who would have stood in their way. Steph didn't want to think of it all right them. She planted her hands behind Jason and pulled him forward, pressed her lips against his again.

And this time there was no hesitation before he snaked his arms around her in return.

They'd have to deal with it all soon.

Just not right that moment.

o

o

o

Jason had a hard time believing it when she stuck around, when she was happy he stuck around. He almost had a hard time sticking around himself, and pushing down the anger that built up whenever he thought about finding her in The Dive, or of Bruce, ripping Batgirl away from her. There was never a part of him not shrieking at him to go out and _'do'_ something about it. But there was another part to beat that one down.

From where he'd forced it to the back of his mind so long ago, it was creeping forward ever so slowly, pushing the other down. Turning the man who'd taken those hits out on her into a bloody puddle wouldn't undo what he'd done to her, wouldn't make her feel safer, not when she didn't want that. It would stop him from doing it again though, discourage others from trying.

He couldn't get Batgirl back for her, on that front there was absolutely nothing he couldn't do. Even going as far as destroying everything the bats stood for, or locking them in a room with guns to their heads wouldn't fix that that, there was nothing. There he was more than useless and he hated it. For all their claims of family, they were just as…

' _We're happy you're alive Jason…'_

His thoughts screeched to a halt as they flashed through his mind, Bruce and Dick stepping forward and pulling him away from the wall, towards the car, back to the cave…

"Jay." Stephanie tugged on his hair and he looked up from the pages of the book he'd been staring blankly at for who knew how long. Her face appeared above his, brows creased with worry and the thigh his head rested on shifted, reminding him of its presence as she set aside her notebook. "You haven't turned a page in like an hour." So that was how long.

"Thinking." He mumbled, gaze drifting to the once blank notebook she'd been doodling on, using his head as a table. Her frown deepened and she kept it on him, it took him a couple seconds to realize she was waiting for him to elaborate. "They shoulda made a movie bout this one." He wiggled his book and blinked up at her.

"There's like, a ton of movies about the 'Count of Montecristo'." She huffed.

"I meant a good one," He set the book down as he sat up so she could stretch her legs out. Jason yawned, stretching his arms above his head that was feeling just a little foggy, sleep tugging on the edges in a way it normally only did when he was actually deprived of it and not when he'd just spent an afternoon doing nothing and wanted a nap. He shook the thought away and reached for the laptop he'd stashed under the bed.

"All the movies are better than that book." She rolled her eyes. "There was this cool series I watched with Tim a couple…"

"Huh?" Jason looked to her from the loading screen, surprised at how suddenly she'd cut herself off.

"Nothing." She scratched out some of the scribbles on the note pad and Jason tapped down on the enter key hard enough that if it weren't made of steel he would have broken it.

She sighed and flopped back onto the mound of blankets and pillows she'd piled on the bed, Jason hadn't even known he'd had that many in this bolt hole, but then, it wasn't like he'd ever had much of a need to check. Jason leaned back next to her, supporting his weight on his elbow so he could look down at her. Again, he wracked his brain for ' _something_ ' he could do, and again he came up empty.

Without her being Batgirl, really finding the new Red Hood wasn't much more than busy work. Sure Jason could slap the bastard around a little, but he couldn't really trust himself to do just that once they did find him. It wasn't like he cared much about the drug lords dropping like flies under his reign, and with any luck the bats would get their asses in gear now and find the poser soon on their own anyway.

"They'll have to get over themselves eventually." He said, idly wrapping a golden lock of hair around his finger. "I can still convince 'em you were coerced, get your mom some tickets to Hawaii and say I kidnapped her. There's this great hotel where they feed you…"

"No Jason." She shook her head with a smile and a roll of her eyes. "As much as she'd love that, I'm not letting em think that."

"They think it already." He shrugged. "I can take over the underworld again, maybe dump the little monster in desert somewhere with couple 'guards' to get em outta the way. You clean that up and I bet…"

"No hurting Damian, he's a prat but he's a baby prat." She glared at him, but it was halfhearted at best.

"Wouldn't hurt him." Jason paused, eyes drifting to the ceiling. "Much." He amended. "Might do it anyway." Jason mused aloud, watching the hair unwind itself from his finger before he picked up another lock. "Let him dig his way out an show off his lesser used skills, bet he'd love it, little tough guy. See how ' _happy_ ' they are I'm alive then." The last part came out a growl and he dropped her hair so he wouldn't accidentally tug at it too hard.

"You ' _want_ ' people to want you dead?" Her tone was ' _too_ ' casual as she chewed on the end of her pen, a deep crease forming between his brows. A snide comment was on the tip of his tongue. But he reigned himself in, pushed back the memory of that second after he'd fallen that Bruce had rushed towards him, before Dick had appeared between them.

"I'd take that over having them being borderline ' _nice_ '." Jason scoffed, flopping flat on his back and turning his gaze to the faintly humming air vents on the wall opposite them. "Fucking creepy's what that was. I'd take ' _being_ ' dead over that."

"You would, wouldn't you?" she rolled her eyes. "God you're an asshole. She peered up at him, you're an asshole that won't admit to dyeing your hair and doesn't even have freckles anymore. Why do I still like you?"

"Overexposure." Jason shrugged. "Like people who like caviar."

"Caviar's gross." Her face twisted in a grimace.

"I know." Jason frowned, thinking back to the times he'd been forced to eat the stuff and smile. "You can draw the freckles back on if you want."

She hummed her head titling back and forth as though she were debating with herself.

"I'm kidding." Jason said, pulling away from her.

"No take backsies." She uncapped her pen with a flourish.

"Fuck." Jason grabbed the nearest pillow and covered his face with it, knowing he couldn't twist out of the way without pulling at least a couple stitches. "I'm injured, lost _'so'_ much blood; ya can't do this while I'm down an out. It's unethical."

"Too bad you don't like people being nice to you." She tried to wretch the pillow out of his arms. "I wouldn't wanna creep you out."

"Stephanie I swear I will…" He bemoaned the loss of his ability to curl into a ball to protect his face. "I'll eat your pets."

"Don't have pets, and no you wouldn't." She turned the pen over in her hands. "Come on, you're being overdramatic here, look at you, running away again, and from a stupid marker." She pulled her face into something that could have looked serious if she hadn't so obviously been fighting off the curling up of her lips. "Can't say I'm surprised, seeing as how you tried to run away from a little girl."

"You're setting a bad example." Jason tried. "You're not supposed to be holding things over me."

"Your fault, you ' _are'_ the bad example." The grin split her face here, and Jason could feel his resolve at wanting to keep his face free of ink crumbling. It wasn't like any of the people whose opinions he actually cared about ever saw him without a mask anyway.

"Be serious for a second here Stephanie, that argument holds ' _no_ ' weight." He folded his arms, waiting just a second before he sighed and stepped forward. "What idiot would ever follow ' _my_ ' example?"

o

o

o

'RED HOOD AND SCARLET SAY: LET THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME.' The bold letters of the headline were pinned to the clear white wall, a rare picture of the Red Hood lined up alongside one of Batgirl, grinning brightly for her camera; a knife wedged in the space between her eyes.

There wasn't much left over from that time. Someone had gone so far as to take to the internet and scrub the videos and just about anything that could have been in anyway useful, but he'd looked, oh he'd looked.

Among scraps and the few video's he himself had downloaded. He'd spent so many nights reading that one newspaper headline. The article itself was stupid, but he liked the headline. It was simple, so easy to understand and yet it seemed like no one ever did.

If they had, then someone would have done something to help, wouldn't they?

'Let the punishment fit the crime.' Apparently believing that was a crime in itself, and the punishment for being caught was even worse than the one you got for being any of the evil, corrupt monsters that crawled all over the city everyday with nothing in their way.

A ghost made of blood and mist that disappeared without a trace when it's work was done. Whatever that work may have been, and for a while it had been cleaning out some of that evil.

After everything, the ghost had been just a man. One who'd been locked away as easy as any other.

At first, he'd been disappointed. Just a man, just like anyone else, until he'd read the book, and he'd realized, it was more to be just a man and hold those convictions. To never stop fighting for it, even when you were beaten down, right up until you were killed for it.

He didn't have them anymore, the books. They were gone, but that was okay, because he had them memorized, knew every stroke of the pencil that had been left in those pages. He clung to them, the way he'd rarely ever clung to anything.

Bats had put the Red Hood there, had locked him away and had him killed, and he'd never so much as laid a finger on the one who'd come to hoard it over him. It had taken a while to figure out why, but she must have been different, cared for him the way the rest of their family ' _hadn't'_.

He yanked the knife out of the picture and glared at it. Only that wasn't true either. She did nothing when he was dead, didn't care to help the legacy along, to continue his work or make his murderers pay. She sneered down at the only one who did. She didn't deserve it.

She shouldn't have been his family, didn't have the right, and now… He drove the knife back into the picture and yanked it down, ripping it in half. Now she refused to die for it, had gotten someone to protect her from the consequences.

It was her fault he was dead, the punishment had to fit the crime, it had to. He pulled out a canister, thumbing the release gently, almost lovingly. And it would, he thought, thinking of the crimson fluid within the container that all his work had been building up to. All of his work, going to those stinking room, having to work with all those dealers, it had all been worth it to turn the poison that had killed the Red Hood into this.

They would all suffer seven times what he had, all of them, starting with her. This time the punishment would most assuredly fit the crime.

It was just too bad the Hood wouldn't be there to see it for himself, he would have been proud of his successor.


	31. Bunker

"Jaaaaay." Steph whispered loudly. He groaned and rolled over, at the same time as he grabbed a pillow and thrust it blindly in his approximation of where her face was so.

The muffled grunt and a soft thump heralded the fact that he'd succeeded in knocking her to the floor. It got him a second of quiet before she chuckled and the bed dipped with her weight again.

"Jason." She whispered again, and this time took to poking his face with one calloused fingertip, that he could have ignored, and even if he didn't it bordered making it easier to slip back into sleep and keeping him up. Then, his lack of action apparently ' _not_ ' having the same effect on her, she gently pinched the flesh of his cheek and started gently tugging on his face. "Are you gonna wake up now?"

"No." Short another pillow to toss at her, Jason pulled his head away from her and buried it under the blankets piled up beside him. He'd slept well for the first time in what felt like years, and he wasn't in any hurry to wake up all the way yet, maybe not ever, her series of annoyed and increasingly over the top huffs be damned.

Eventually, her huffs not having the intended effect, she flopped herself lengthways across him, resting her folded arms over his shoulders and propping her head on them. She snaked her hand over him, reaching for ends of the blankets. He didn't realize what she was doing fast enough and she was able to yank them away.

"Stephanie." Jason was too tired to put much effort into his glare, at the face resting on his, only inches away from his. So close, it warped her features and made her look almost bug-like, if he were more awake, he was actually more likely to laugh at her than improve his glare. "What is it now?" he mumbled, deciding to risk the question on the tiny percentage of a chance it would get him more sleep instead of less.

"Grouchy, 'just woke up Jason' is adorable." She said, right before tapping the end of his nose with her finger. "Boop."

Jason groaned, ignoring the warmth that spread through his chest, and batted her hand away as he turned over again, this time fast enough to throw her off both him and the narrow bed as he pulled up the blankets again. It had been a while since he's actually slept under so many, and it was a lot more comfortable than he remembers.

From where she'd fallen on to the ground, she chuckled again. She didn't get back on the bed, but he could still feel her head hovering over his face. "Jay, I'm gonna draw on your face again."

"I don't care." Jason put a pleading tremor into his voice and cracked open one eye to look up at her. "I'll let you fucking draw a full body Nightwing costume on me, just please let me sleep."

"Aww." She curled up next to him on the bed and wrapped her arms around his neck, tucking his head under her chin. "You want me to sing you a lullaby?"

Jason's face warmed, his body tensed, but when her hand started running through his hair he sighed and brought up one of his arms to rest over hers, his hand curling around to feel the pulse at her wrist. He drifted easily back into a light doze as he listened to the soft breaths that brushed against his ear. Two fucking seconds before the light scrapping of her fingernails against his scalp would have lulled him into a deeper sleep and she just had to laugh and tug on his cheek again.

With a huff, Jason reached up and tugged at the soft flesh of her cheek in retaliation. "What?"

"Nothing." Her voice was soft and she tugged at his hair, her eyes looking distantly past him. "I just, really wish they could have seen you like this."

"Trust me, they've seen me seconds from murder plenty enough." Stephanie tugged sharply on his hair and Jason winced. "Ouch."

"You're not scary when you're tired." She pressed her lips to his hairline and went back to cuddling his head.

Approximately three dozen gangbangers would have strongly disagreed with that, but there were hands carding through his hair again, so Jason relaxed into her touch and didn't bring them up.

"Jay?"

Jason bit back another groan and looked up at her again, giving up on getting any more sleep.

"What happens now?" She bit down on her lower lip.

"Breakfast?" He asked, regretting pulling away from her to sit up as soon as he did. "We got spam and peanut butter." He spied the edge of one of his boots peaking out around the corner of the bed and reached for it. "Or I can risk a food run." His stitches were out, and as long as it was within his side of town, he was mostly confident in his ability to evade Oracle's ' _Big Brother'_ network again.

"No I mean." She sat up too, pulled her legs out from under her and tossed her hair over her shoulder with a short sigh. "What happens to you and me, after this is all over? To, y'know, us?"

Jason swallowed, his hand pausing halfway to the boot. A big part of him wanted to brush the topic off, push the whole conversation off as far as he could. He hadn't wanted to think about it, in the moments when they were quiet and it had encroached on his thoughts, let alone talk about it.

Jason drew his hand back to himself and straightened up, planting his feet firmly in the ground in the hopes the stability would do ' _something_ ' for the turning over in his gut. "Can't exactly hide out in a bomb shelter forever, huh?" He licked his lips and took in a breath. "After we clean up in Gotham Talia…" he noticed the way Stephanie stilled at the name, the way she always did and Jason hadn't put much thought into before. "She wants me to join up with her new Society, 't's kind of a life contract, but the benefits make up for the no quit policy."

"You wanna join Talia's new _'cult'_?" Stephanie blinked once, her hands clenching around fistfuls of fabric in front of her, a dangerous edge to her voice. "Her Society of ' _Supervillains_ ', like, the society that she sent after the Commissioner?" A spark lit suddenly behind her wide eyes and they narrowed. "What did you tell her to make her call them off? He said you were yelling at someone on the phone, what…"

"Nothing." Jason waved dismisively before he realized her worry was genuine and the hand paused, torn between reaching for her and pulling away, and so settled for hovering awkwardly between them. "Fuck." He'd really just made it obvious that he'd be there until either the bats showed up or he'd killed all of her men. The real reason she'd pulled off was likely that him getting arrested again would just have given her more work in erasing the ' _last_ ' time he'd been arrested than leaving one loose string."She's not…" he laughed softly, tried to make it sound genuine. "Blackmailing me, Steph. I've done work for her before, stakes'd just be a little higher."

"And if she gives you a job you don't wanna do?" Her face crumpled briefly before she looked around the room, her eyes settling on the duffle bag she must have seen before that. "You ' _know_ ' how those things work, you can't just walk away. You were already wearing that uniform when you got back. Did you already say yes?" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh god, if you try to leave, they send people after you. I can, and Kara's still gone, but…"

"Calm down." Jason rested his hands on her shoulders, made her look up at him. "Stephanie." He brushed his thumb along her jaw, not sure whether to be offended that she thought he couldn't handle himself, or give in to the oddly pleased feeling that came with her _'wanting'_ to help him. "God." He shook his head. "No one's coming after me, I haven't said ' _yes_ ' yet."

"Yet?" She turned her face in his hands.

"Yet." Jason repeated and sighed, turning away from her. "It's not like I'd be doin' much I wouldn't already, and it's not the ' _Society of Supervillains'_ ," he smiled at the idea Talia would take up ' _that_ ' corny name for her league splinter cell. "I don't need you to explain it to me I 'know' what I'm getting myself into."

"If you're gonna do them anyway, then why not just do them on your own!?"

"Because maybe I'm _'tired'_ of doing things on my own." Jason bit the words out and ran a hand through his hair, pushing some of the curls from his brow; he had to cut it, soon if he didn't want someone ripping it out in the middle of a fight. He really wished he'd gotten some more sleep before this, a few more minutes of dozing with her hands in his hair even, or her chuckles as she tried to get a reaction out of him with her frustrating poking."I do ' _everything_ ' alone, and I think my ' _record of accomplishment'_ speaks for itself that it hasn't exactly made me any ' _less'_ of a fuck up."

"You're not alone now." Her voice was almost even, the tremor of hurt lurking just deep enough for him to pick it up. "You're not alone here, with me; you don't have to do this." She chewed on her bottom lip. "I don't want you to get hurt doing something you don't have to do."

And no, he wasn't alone, never alone with her, even when he wished she'd leave him to rot alone in Arkham, when he's complained about her brightness instead of reveling in it, he hadn't felt alone, never when he was with her, but that was just the thing. He'd grown accustomed to having someone close, to lunches and movies and doing stupid shit that her presence made so much more fun than something five times as amusing could have been without her. To being looked at like he wasn't a monster, like there was something in him that was ' _good_ ' and ' _desirable_ ' and not just for the things he could do. That was exactly why he ' _did_ ' have to leave.

The closest he'd come to that since his return had been his multiversal escapade with Kyle and Donna, and that whole thing had just left him more fucked up that ever before. Pretending he could keep up with that, trying to make nice with his replacement Robin and thinking he could get something out of Bruce's message had made it worse.

"We can't stay in this bunker forever Stephanie." He repeated, his arm twitching to wrap around her and pull her closer, it stayed by his side, gripping the bed frame instead. "When I leave I'm back on every cape's shit list and you're still a hero, even without Batgirl," Jason's blood heated up just that much more at that little reminder. "You're a fucking ' _superhero_ ' and all I'm considering taking a job ' _killing'_ people. Ya got choices I don't; I'm not stealing those too."

"And ' _what'_ exactly do you think you're doing right now?" She asked standing from the bed to glare down at him, her arms crossed over her chest, her words jaggedly sharp to go with the uneven tempo of her breathing. "Jason I can't make you stay, but you don't get to pretend you're doing me some kind of favor by leaving me here, you're ' _not_ ' giving me ' _choices'_ you're taking the only one I want." She jabbed a finger at his chest, her voice rising in volume. "You don't get to decide what's best for me, I'm not letting anyone do that anymore, and I'm sure as hell not gonna ' _crawl_ ' back to the Batcave on my fucking knees, you leaving won't ' _fix'_ anything!"

"No, but you won't ' _let_ ' me do what would fix it!" Jason shot back, keeping himself seated through sheer force of will, he didn't want to stand up now, didn't want to loom over her. He wasn't expecting her to be passive, but then, when he'd actually started considering what he was going to do, he'd already thought he wouldn't have been seeing her again.

"By pretending to ' _kidnap_ ' people?!" She threw out her arms, her expression incredulous, traces of humor she'd sported when he'd made his suggestions starkly absent. "I'm not lying to them again!"

"Yeah cause telling the truth worked out 'so' fucking well for you before." Jason couldn't keep the spite from his voice, that things could have been so much easier if she hadn't done that. "They didn't need to know what happened, there were at least a dozen ways we coulda played it and they'd have never taken the cowl from you."

"How many of those ways had me never seeing you again?" Her fists were balled tightly tension rising in her shoulders. "Or them hunting you down like you're not even human any…!"

"I'll NEVER be human to them!" Jason didn't know he he'd leaped up until he did it his voice booming in the small room and sounding impossibly loud even to his own ears. "Watching you scribble on my face, or wake me up, or pull at my hair'll do fuck all to change that. At fucking most it'll get a mention in my case file that the rabid ' _thing_ ' didn't rip your fucking throat out!"

He was always a case, or videos they should have never see, or a side show in a cage… Those last seconds he'd seen them – the lines on Bruce's face when he'd thrown Jason's arm over his shoulder, how, how fucking 'easy' it would have been to… – they invaded his memory again, and he suddenly felt so deeply sick he might have actually thrown up if he'd had the chance to eat yet.

She'd backed up from him, away from him, her eyes wide, body coiled tight as a cobra ready to strike at him, practically vibrating with pent up energy. When his eyes met hers he expected fear, or anger, but all he caught was hurt and that was somehow so, so much worse.

Jason dropped back to the bed, the strings of his fury having been severed completely, leaving him with about as much strength as a dying sloth. He wanted to curl up and go back to sleep, or gather up his gear and lose himself in something that wasn't ' _this_ ', but if he left the bunker, or closed his eyes, then that was it, wasn't it? Things would be over just that much sooner, he didn't want them to be over yet.

"I'm sorry." He bent over to pick up the pillow he'd thrown at her just a little while ago, studied the soft fabric as he ran his hands over it. "I promised I'd help you till we solved this thing with the frenzy, maybe I can… Maybe ' _we_ ' can figure something else out by then." He looked up, caught her gaze with his hesitantly.

Her arms dropped limply to her sides, but rose again as she stepped forwards. Jason made himself keep still despite the burning behind his eyes when she reached for his neck, ran her hands along his shoulders.

"I don't wanna see you getting hurt like that again." She dropped onto his lap, the weight of her comforting even as a sob escaped her throat and he held her tight as he could, turning his face into her hair and breathing in, her scent grounding him. He didn't want to leave, more than anything else he didn't want to leave.

O

O

O

Steph hated it; she hated the whole thing, that Jason thought his only chance at keeping away from the Justice League was to basically sell himself to a cult. She hated that the bats had called in the Justice League to help track Jason down. Hated that Jason was right, that she couldn't come up with a better solution either. There was nothing that would have ended with him winding up anywhere but locked away somewhere else, and there wasn't a doubt she'd never see him again if that happened, she'd never know if they were putting something in his food again, or doing keeping him in virtual solitary twenty-four seven.

She hated that there was a part of her, a small, terrible, selfish part that almost wished they never found the Red Hood. Because if they never solved the case, then Jason couldn't leave, could he?

Jason's tall frame was practically bent in half over the little table not far off, not that anything was ' _ever'_ far of in that little room, marking off points on some maps with a sharpie while Steph tried to dig up any new information on his laptop. She had a feeling he didn't _'like'_ that kind of work very much and the only thing keeping him from trying to go out and find info was because he ' _couldn't_ ' yet.

The laptop was a higher tier connection to the network he'd connected to via the tablet before he'd left Gotham, and Steph had been impressed with that thing. The stuff she could potentially find using the laptop was amazing, like, Tim might have shot himself in the foot for a peek amazing. Lists of active hitmen, open bounties, pages worth of upcoming dictators, big name cartel bosses, and the real people behind those bosses, it was the kind of info Steph would have never gotten full access to on the Batcomputer.

But unlike with the tablet, she couldn't work herself up to be excited about it, not now she knew where Jason had gotten it from and what it might have cost him.

It was him that disturbed the awkward silence that had descended so thickly over everything neat them. He dropped his hands on either side of the table, his cheeks puffing up while he let out a long breath of air.

"Forgot about breakfast." He straightened up, his back releasing a couple of popping sounds as he stretched out. "I'm gonna get something before archaeologists dig our starving fossils outta here, you got any requests?"

Steph almost asked if going out at all was a good idea, there were still cans of food in the bunker, but when she met his eyes, their look was so much less sure of himself than she was used to. Going with the good idea wasn't something either she or Jason were known for anyway. They were going to get cabin fever if they stayed in the bunker for very much longer.

"Yeah, wait up." Steph set the laptop aside and leapt to her feet, almost letting out a pleased moan when she stretched out the kinks in her own back. "I've gotta get some things too."

"With that leg?" He raised an eyebrow at her, his lips flattening into a thin line. "Sure you wanna risk getting a wooden one. Be cool of you were lookin' to get a pirate theme, but I'd probably eat your parrot."

"It's fine." It really was, her shoulder had been hurt worse than her leg, the latter had just been a little worse for wear because she'd sprinted up a million stairs on it waaaay before it was ready. Safe, sure, but accessible Jason's bunker was not.

Jason still frowned at her worriedly while lacing up the boots he had to collect from the opposite ends of the room they'd wound up in and she tightened the more practical straps on her sneakers.

"You're sure?" He asked over his shoulder as he typed out the strings of codes to open the heavy steel door, there was something in his voice that gave Steph the impression he wasn't just asking whether she was willing to grab lunch with him.

"Jay, I love you, but you put peanut butter on your spam, we're not at the point where I'll share a toothbrush with you." She made a point of stepping a little hard on her bad leg before she latched on to his arm, it hurt, it still hurt a little, but was nothing compared to how it had felt when she's first woken up in the bunker. "Can I borrow the huge green hoody?"

"Yeah." Jason turned his face abruptly aside, but didn't say anything else until they'd stepped off the elevator reached the stairs again and she had to remind him that he'd just taken his stitches out, so no; he couldn't carry her down them. She maybe regretted that choice a little by the time they reached the bottom.

The Coventry was the least on grid part of Gotham, and the very good reason for it being, because large parts of it were creaky warehouses and condemned apartment blocks, it also meant there really weren't many places they ' _could_ ' but any kind of food. There weren't even very many places they could buy food.

The good part however, was that it was real close to Gotham U. and by the time Jay and Steph got there, it was right after the lunch rush, leaving them with a veritable catalogue of food-trucks just hanging around the outskirts of the area. Finding one that had gotten a bad parking space, hidden from many customers, but also cameras than could have been hacked by Gotham's resident 'Big Brother' was a lot less stressful than Steph would have expected it to be.

Even with Jason being deliberately over the top and picky about the whole process – she knew for a fact he'd eat a dessert pizza, he put desert things on his regular pizza – or maybe it was actually because he was being deliberately over the top and picky. The walk back, through back alleys underground tunnels was still a relief. Especially once they were back in the ' _bad_ ' part of town – and wasn't that just the most comforting thought ever.

"D'ya ever worry about how much junkfood you eat?" Steph asked around a mouthful of chicken nuggets, coated in golden crumbs and tasting so much better than any food had a right to when she'd been eating cold tinned corn. The semi strict diet she was used to around the rest of the bats was non-existent for Jason, whose eating habits were about as healthy as that of the typical ramen munching college student.

"Nah." He balled up the wrapper for one burger and tossed it over his shoulder into a trash bin before fishing another out the plastic bag hanging off his arm with a snort. "'F I die it won't be from fucking cholesterol."

Steph shrugged and dipped another nugget into her small tub of sauce. "It's not just cholesterol Jason, but like, your heart rate and energy levels and sleep and…"

Jason snatched a nugget out of Steph's box and got himself a scowl that he accepted with a cheeky grin.

"You sound like… someone." He turned away and drank down half his can of soda, muttering something she couldn't make out.

"For someone who gets punched in the face so much, I'd have thought you'd be more worried about your bones, but fine." Steph huffed and, mentally noting her hypocrisy, sipped on her milkshake.

"Helmet." He rapped the side of her head lightly with his knuckles and chuckled when she yelped and ducked out of his reach, flailing her box of nuggets at him. "Sides I eat less junk when'm not busy." He happily bit into his burger. "Or lazy, or somewhere without a stove ' _and_ ' busy."

"Cause it's so much more work to chew and swallow the grilled chicken than the crispy bacon-beef special." She ducked her nuggets out of his reach.

"'F wanted grilled chicken, I'd make it myself." He pouted at her, or more accurately at her chicken nuggets.

"Now I'm trying to imagine you cooking, and it's hilarious." She covered the box with her hand, he'd had his own nuggets, and he'd finished them, she wasn't letting him finish hers too. "That how you close deals in underworld."

"Okay one, I am hurt, deeply, deeply hurt." He gave up on acquiring her food and took a big bite of his instead. "And offended at the assumption my personality isn't enough to close a deal. Two, I'd like to see you ' _try_ ' and find the fucking place that makes grilled chicken as well as I do." He shoved the last bit of burger into his mouth. "Fucking dare ya."

"Do you cover it with syrup and put it on waffles?" Steph asked scooping up some of the sauce at the bottom of the box with a nugget.

"Shit." Jason paused in finishing off his soda; it sent a rush of anxiety through Steph for a second. "Now I want chicken and waffles." He looked over his shoulder, back the way they'd come, "Think I can make it back 'f I'm careful," and Steph could have believed the guy who'd stolen a car from a drug cartel and sent it over a cliff ' _for fun'_ would have done it too.

"No." Steph grabbed his arm and began pulling him with her the way they were already moving. "I've still gotta get a toothbrush, remember, and your soap makes my skin feel like sandpaper."

He looked ready to argue, but leaned in close to her instead and rubbed his head against her cheek; Steph let out a surprised yelp, but didn't pull away. "Softest sandpaper ever."

She tugged on his hair and snorted, turning her face away to hide the flare of heat on her cheeks. "You're a dork."

"Now I'm offended again." He huffed and cocked his head at an angle. "Store's that way."

Hiding out in a secret lead lined underground bunker the approximate size of shoebox was all well and good… right up until it became really clear that up to a point it really wasn't. Sure, there was enough food crammed into the surprising amount of storage space to wear out a small drought, but the bathroom – the approximate size of a matchbox, for reference – he'd stocked for only a single person.

While she was there, she wanted to get some other things that weren't so obviously military surplus – Steph wasn't sure there was anything in that bunker that wasn't – and consequently, didn't leave her skin feeling like the softest sandpaper ever. Not spoiled for choice, it didn't take her very long. The snacks she added to her load included a couple bags of skittles tossed on the counter with a flash of a smile at the cashier and a huff from Jason. She made a game of trying to make Jason eat some in the way back.

Much easier than it sounded, seeing as how she gave in and let him piggyback her up the stairs on the way back.

"Just one." She tried pushing the candy into his mouth as they ascended, with his twisting his head every which way in an attempt to avoid it.

"Blondie, I will drop you down these fucking stairs I swear." He said, the colorful streaks smeared all over his face from her previous attempts taking what little threat there was out of the statement.

"That fast, huh?" She bent over his shoulder to frown at him, registering that he'd actually called her that again and she couldn't remember the last time he'd done it or when exactly he'd stopped. "And we're back to Blondie." She popped the skittle in her own mouth instead.

"You're no less blond than you ever were." He shook his head at her and adjusted her weight on his back as he turned up another flight, but there was a smile tugging at his lips. "Proof you can get used to anything, huh?"

"Well you're no less of an asshole." She said mulishly and dropped her head on his shoulder, tightening the arms she had wrapped around him and considering jabbing him with her heel. "It's the lack of sugar." She got out another skittle and pressed it to his lips. "Eat."

"No." He nudged the hand away and glowered at her. "Apparently I have to watch what I eat, and those are _'bad'_ for you." He worked his jaw as he turned to look ahead and then mumbled, "Get stuck in your teeth."

Steph hummed, watching his face as they climbed up the last bit of stairs and the elevator that would take them aaall the way down came in sight. She narrowed her eyes at him and put another piece of candy in her mouth, getting a bemused eye roll when he caught the look out the corner of his eye.

"Jay." She said, just as he pressed the button to call the elevator. He turned and she leaned over his shoulder again, and this time gripping his jaw and pressing her lips against his, muffling whatever his reply would have been. He stopped moving almost immediately and leaned into the kiss. Steph's chest fluttered and she loosened the hold she had on his jaw; she almost forgot why she'd kissed him in the first place.

Then she remembered and passed the skittle in her mouth past his lips before she had to pull away for air.

Jason blinked at her, dazed for the few seconds it took for the elevator doors to slide open before he even noticed the candy, then his cheeks turned red and he let out a low growl. "Damnit Stephanie." He dropped her and stomped into the elevator.

She broke into laughter and kept at it while Jason scowled; his arms crossed petulantly over his chest the whole ride down, but dutifully swallowed the skittle.

"Yeah laugh now." He said, leaving the elevator for the dark hallway that lead to the bunker. "When I got no teeth you can. "See how funny it is when I use ' _your_ ' toothbrush to clean it out."

Steph chuckled again, and linked her arm in his as he moodily tapped on the keypad outside the door. "The sugar didn't help." She nuzzled her head against his chest and he straightened with a reluctant huff as the door slid open. It was smaller than she remembered after even the short time they'd been gone. Almost as small, Steph realized now that she actually thought about it, as his cell in Arkham.

If he didn't join Talia's Society, was the kind of place he'd have to stay all the time? She thought about the studio apartment he'd stayed in before, it had been on the small side too, but cozy and warm in a stark contrast to the bleak bunker, something beeping steadily from within.

She hesitated just a moment too long before she entered; still holding onto to him and Jason frowned down at her, a crease appearing between his eyebrows.

"If you go work for her, will I ever see you again?" She asked, softly and Jason sucked in a deep breath through his teeth.

"I d…" He rolled his shoulders, dislodging her light hold on his arm so he should step inside. "The search algorithms picked something up." He strode over to where Steph had left the laptop, the source of the beeping, and flipped the device open.

"Jason…" she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her borrowed hoody.

"Can't we talk about this later?" He kept his eyes fixed wholly on the screen as he tapped roughly at the keys.

"Like when you're gone again?" She swung her hand out in a chopping motion and he flinched, but didn't look up.

"Bastards got the GCPD to put an APB on Batgirl." He growled, something dangerous flashing behind his eyes, and flipped the laptop around to show her the GCPD order taking up the screen. "We'll talk when we've dealt with, okay?"

Stephanie's heart sank and she took the device from his hands disbelievingly so she could read it, hoping there was some kind of… of thing she'd missed, like some stupid kids making a stupid joke like the guys who'd made a ' _Robin Wanted'_ add for Batman. There was nothing indicating this one was the work of some bored IT students.

She tried to wrap her head around the fact that the GCPD was on the hunt for Batgirl.


	32. The Shovel Talk

He'd worked fast even though he hadn't needed to; pulled out every trick he'd heard countless times through countless doors that weren't as locked as they should have been. When his targets slunk through the filthy alleys of the filthy city, thinking they were safe, that nothing could touch them because the only thing in the city that ever had was gone.

It wasn't even hard, nowhere near how hard he'd thought it would be. With some hired muscle, and he had plenty to use for the hiring, along with some that weren't exactly hired but with bought loyalty all the same. Plucking a few rats off the street had been easy, getting a handful of _'insurance policies'_ along with them had been easy too.

No one cared what happened to them, no one important anyway, actually he liked to think there were a few sighs of relief after what he'd done.

Now he stood, surveying the set up, practically shaking with the thought of what it could all lead up to as some of his men set up a camera. Trained the lens on the rows of sniveling pigs bound together in the wide-open space. It took four men to pull the bed across the floor, drawing his gaze and holding it as the heavy, blood spattered metal screeched along the concrete ground, tiny specs of the metal still catching the dim light and gleaming through.

Having it cleaned would be a priority before _'she'_ got anywhere near it, after everything she didn't deserve to… But then, her blood was the same, he chewed his inner cheek as he thought it over. It hadn't mattered all that much to her, but it might have to _'him'_ or at least it at seemed to when he'd let her talk to him the way she had.

 _'His'_ men, the ones who'd come back to him on their own had already placed a chair in front of the camera and bolted to the ground, now they dropped the _'security guard'_ of _'that'_ storage facility into it. Not fighting anymore it seemed, head lolled into his shoulder and breaths ragged and strained through his damp rag. Too bad, that had been interesting. It was what he'd deserved for giving him false hope, making him think there was even the smallest chance the Red Hood was still doing his work.

The lights went off, the camera was ready. The Red Hood slipped his helmet over his head. It was time, the blood didn't matter, nothing else mattered anymore, not until the end. The cameras went on, he drew the canister of frenzy from his pocket, ran his gloved fingers over its surface.

' _He'_ was ready.

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Meeting the parents was supposed to be a normal, if extremely awkward activity in every relationship. Not that Steph was going to be so bold as to classify what she had with Jason as a _'relationship'_ type of relationship, when he hadn't said anything like that yet, and now she was just over thinking things again. The point was, that Steph meeting Jason's almost mom had been terrifying, murder had been threatened and it was made blatantly clear that she believed Steph was _'not'_ good enough for him.

It was the quintessential meet the parent's experience.

Now Steph hadn't planned on seeing her mother that night. She and Jason were supposed to get into her house, get the Batgirl suit and _'get out'_ with Crystal Brown remaining very unaware. Unfortunately, things hadn't gone as planned and Steph had somehow ended up seated at the dinner table with her mom, trying to explain 'why' she and her friend had been trying to sneak into Steph's old bedroom.

Steph could have gotten at least a little enjoyment out of the occasion, gotten something to tease Jason about later on, but alas it was not to be.

"If you're what's been keeping her away here I can see the appeal, it's nice to know there was a more normal reason this time, but mothers worry." Crystal sighed deeply, swirling around the cheap wine in her glass. The correct answer was that Steph lied enough and she didn't want to do it more than she absolutely had to, but also could have risked the bats going to her mom for intell.

Jason's mouth was stuffed with mashed potatoes; the most innocent look imaginable plastered across his stupid face. "I tried to make her visit Ma'am, but she just…"

"He tried to shove me in a one of those big mailboxes in old town, we almost got arrested." Steph cut in, shooting Jason a glare that had no heat in it.

He grinned back at her and scooped up another forkful of potato. "So it's the cop's fault she didn't visit." Jason jabbed his fork into the general direction of the city proper, narrowing his eyes dangerously, it would have been more convincing if he hadn't chosen that moment to stuff his mouth again. "I can find him and beat him up for you."

Crystal chuckled and clapped her hands in front of her face, the crow's feet at the edges of her eyes deepening. "I'm not sure I want to know where you found this one Steph."

"He was a patient at Doc Thompson's clinic for a while." She pretended not to see the way her mother's face tightened ever so slightly at the mention of the doctor. "I snuck him candy and spaghetti-ohs." She didn't miss the light shudder that ran through Jason at that memory, and neither, apparently did her mom.

"You know patients are put on diets for a reason Stephanie." Crystal tsked and shook her head.

"Yeah I know." Steph sighed and Jason washed down the last of his potatoes down with a sip from his as of yet untouched wine glass. "But he asked so nicely, and look at this face." She squished his cheeks together between her palms and turned his head to her mother.

"I'll never be able to eat spaghetti-ohs again." Jason said without dislodging his head from her hands, his shoulders folding in and his mouth turning down in the most exaggerated frown Steph had ever seen.

"Like that'll negatively impact your variety at all." She let him go with a gentle shove and folded her arms in front of her, turning her eyes back to her mom. "He'll eat anything that doesn't kill him, so don't feel too proud he likes your mashed potatoes so much."

"These are the best potatoes I've ever tasted in my life Misses Brown." He said, wide-eyed and earnest as he could possibly have been. Bruce really should have let him do theater. "Sunshine over here's just jealous cause the cake she made me eat almost killed me." He tilted his head to the doorway and the staircase they'd been trying to ascend when Crystal had caught them.

"Yeah, you're laying it on kinda thick now, she already adores you Jay, you can stop now." Steph rolled her eyes and stood up, she wasn't going to get a better chance to grab the suit before her mom roped her into more conversation and they _'were'_ working on a time limit.

"I wouldn't go as far to say I adore him." Crystal said, gathering up the dishes as Steph made for the stairs.

"Lies." Steph narrowed her eyes at her mom, and then Jason, who at least pretended to look guilty. "I gotta grab some stuff upstairs." She looked back at her mother. "Please don't say anything embarrassing while I'm gone."

Steph heard some more clinking of the dishes and then Jason's. "Here lemme give ya a hand with that."

Crystal made a reply, but Steph was already on the second floor and their voices were too faint for her to pick up unless she really tried.

Her room was just the same as it had been when she'd left it, which was a little cleaner than it had been when she'd actually used it but less tidy than it really should have been. She and Cass had painted the walls a soft pink just a few weeks before she'd moved out, posters of sports teams and other superheroes still covered the places where there had once been cracks.

There were some out of date magazines on a desk next to an even more out of date desktop computer – one of her housewarming gifts from Tim had been the laptop she still used, in hindsight she probably should have asked for a new fridge instead.

The soft, barely discernable voices drifting up from the kitchen and the litter free floors took what could have been nostalgia at visiting her old room and shifted it just enough to make it something new that left her feeling just a little off balance.

She rested her hand on her bed in the hopes it would help her steady herself, ran her hands along the plush, glossy comforter, thinking that if she'd had more time she might have taken it with her back to her apartment. Gotham was starting to get colder and this one was warmer than the one back at her apartment.

With a sigh, she pushed out a breath past puffed out cheeks, Steph braced her hands against her mattress and shoved it partway off the base, revealing a thick sheet that she pulled aside to get at the handles for the compartment built into her bed.

Steph was almost surprised when she opened it and found that the few extra supplies she kept there were still in place. After one final listen for any approaching footsteps – telling her that the voices were still confined to the kitchen – Steph began gathering her supplies out from the compartment.

A Batgirl suit, musty smelling, but unlike all the other spares it was at least completely and within reach, not locked away in the clock tower. There were half a dozen gooperangs, various lock picks, and a grapple gun were all she had of this suit, but she supplemented with something she still had left over from her Spoiler days, which included some stolen smoke bombs and a busted up rebreather that would probably work fine.

She piled the equipment in a gym bad that had been the victim of her boredom when there'd been a magic marker on hand and had thus been covered in doodles. On top of the superhero stuff, she piled some of the more mundane objects she could find around the room just in case someone checked the bag. Magazines, a stuffed rabbit she regretted leaving behind in the first place, some a couple soft, fluffy sweaters and a Gotham Knights cap were all stuffed into the little remaining space in the bag before she forced the zipper to close over it all.

It was no heavier than she'd thought it would be, but not exactly light either, coulda been worse, she coulda slung the strap over her injured shoulder. That was only an almost.

Steph gave the room one last, lingering look at her room before she flicked off the light and made her way back for the stairs. Her mother was talking, her voice becoming easier for Steph to understand now that she was closer.

"… exactly are you plans for my daughter."

Steph stopped walking, her ears now tuning in fully to the sounds coming up from the kitchen, or lack of sounds, because the clinking of dishes had suddenly stopped, her curiosity peeked. Steph knew her mom _'could'_ be pretty intimidating sometimes; nurses in Gotham had to be. Nurses all over the world probably, now that she thought about it. She'd never seen Jason intimidated before, so it was the only thing she hadn't been able to tease him about. Steph put the bag down to try creeping closer without them hearing her.

"I uh,…" Jason sounded a little nervous, but more like he was trying to figure out what to say. "I'm not sure." He said at last and she heard the think of a plate being set down. "Not gonna be in Gotham for very long, so there really isn't much to plan."

Oh, Steph paused, suddenly finding things a lot less amusing with that reminder, and damnit if she could go just a couple of hours without those kinds of reminders.

"I don't like the idea of someone leading Stephanie on." Crystal's voice had dropped an octave, and Steph leaned over the banister of the stairs to see what was going on. Her mom had her arms crossed a stony glare directed at Jason.

"I wouldn't." Jason draped the drying cloth over his shoulder and got the sponge out to start washing the pot. "Steph knows, we… We talked about it." he paused in his scrubbing of the pot, for just a moment. "She knows." He repeated and put more effort into his cleaning.

After a few seconds of silence, all crystal said was. "That's too bad." And she went back to packing glasses away.

"Yeah." Jason moved the pot out of the soapy water and rinsed off the suds clinging to it. "Woulda stayed 'f I coulda." He said without prompting a tremor running through his voice, and Crystal looked back to him. "Only reason I stayed so long's to see her, and, I woulda stayed." He put the pulled the cloth off his shoulder to dry the pot, covertly brushing his arm across his face in the same motion. "Wish I could stay, she's…"

Steph grabbed the bag again and stomped her way down the stairs, before she heard anymore, this time she _'did'_ put the weight on her injured shoulder, and she at the sharp pain, but didn't slow down. It was one thing to eavesdrop for something to tease him about, not when he was like…

"You done yet?" She asked when Jason spun around to look at her.

"You just stayed up there so long so ya wouldna have to help." He passed her the cloth with a deep from and narrowed eyes.

"My hands are full." Steph objected, shifting the bag, ouch again, she leaned over to look around his broad frame at the sink. "And there's only one left."

"I'll hold it for you." Jason offered, holding his arms out to her and wiggling his fingers. "Come on, you're being a bad guest."

"But I'm not a guest, you're the guest." Steph said with a frown she was afraid came across as more of a pout.

"Then I shouldn't be going the dishes." Jason took the bag, the strain was gone instantly from her shoulder and Jason ran a hand over the shirt concealing her bandages when he replaced the bag with his drying cloth.

"You're such a gentleman." Steph said dryly and turned before she saw his answering smirk.

He chuckled and leaned against the counter while she dried the last pot. Steph noticed that her mom didn't find the exchange anywhere near as funny as they did and Steph shot the woman a questioning look.

"Your…" Crystal paused looking from Steph to Jason and back again. "Friend was telling me about his plans for after he leaves."

"Yeah, his mom wants him to work for her." Steph tried to sound nonchalant, burying the stabbing pain saying it herself caused to run through her chest.

"She's not my…" Jason sputtered, rubbing both hands against his face. "Stop saying that!" He jerked his arms towards her.

"Sure, so long as you remind Talia of that the next time she tries to shovel talk me." Steph handed off the pot and turned to face him.

"She did what?" Jason asked, his more playful frustration giving way to the stormy anger that clouded over his eyes, making them appear more green than blue, his face hardening.

Steph lifted his arm and dropped it around her shoulders as she pressed her side against hers; giving him a smile so he didn't think it was too serious, before looking back at her mom. "It was the most terrifying phone call of my life."

They left not too long after that. Even Steph's heavily edited version of the story had Jason steaming, he knew enough about the circumstances to piece together the more likely path the conversation had taken. Crystal thought it was cute, that he was protective of her. Steph herself kind of wished Jason could have been angry enough to reconsider going with Talia after all, then immediately regretted the thought.

Steph hugged her mother goodbye, at the door, she promised to visit again soon, a promise she intended to keep even though Crystal's smile was veeeery skeptical. "I wish I could ask your boyfriend to make sure you kept that promise."

"He's not really my boyfriend mom." Steph said. "I don't know if I'll even see him again after he leaves." She tried to smile at the curb where Jason was waiting by the same green car he'd taken her to the planetarium in, flipping through the pages of the same Russian book she'd found under her seat that time.

He was so absorbed in the pages, he didn't notice when Crystal strode over to him too, by the time he looked up, it was already too late and the woman had wrapped her arms around him too. Jason startled looking over Crystals head at Steph, who doubted he'd have been more shocked had her mother pointed a gun at his head in that moment. Steph didn't bother hiding her amused snort at his reaction and his reaction turned to one of the utmost betrayal.

Then Crystal tugged him down gently by the collar of his shirt and said something quietly enough that her Steph didn't hear as she made her way over. Jason didn't exactly stiffen, but he stood up straighter when she'd finished talking and gave her one, solemn nod.

"Don't get into too much trouble now." Crystal said with a smile that deepened the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, and then she pulled Steph into yet another hug.

"Okay Mom." Steph said at the same time as Jason gave her a sloppy salute and a. "Yes Ma'am."

Crystal nodded and waved goodbye when they finally got into the car and drove off. Steph watched out the back window until the house had completely disappeared from view before she turned back to Jason.

"What'd my mom say?"

"Meh." He shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the gym bag on the bag seat. "Shovel talk. Ya get everything you need?"

"Yeah." Steph leaned over her seat to rest her head against his shoulder, a warm feeling spreading out from her chest when he didn't flinch at the contact as he might once have. "Sorry you got caught up in that, didn't know her shift changed." Mother's _'were'_ kind of a sore spot for Jason, and Steph felt guilt prickling at her chest that she hadn't considered that until right then.

"It's fine." Jason said, a far off look in his eyes, the smile on his face wistful. "It was…" He took one hand off the wheel to wave it in a circular motion as he searched for the word. "Nice. She's a nurse now, right?"

"Well she was always a nurse; she's just gotten more nurse like." And stopped stealing the prescriptions. She bit down on her bottom lip, then pouted and sat up straight. "I can't believe she _'liked'_ you, my mom's never liked any boy's I brought home." Well, not when she'd been sober enough to care anyway.

Jason snorted and diverted his eyes from the road for just a second to glance at her, a smile curling at his lips. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, but it's only cause I didn't tell her you dye your hair." Steph reached over and tugged at the white strands hanging over his forehead.

"Ouch, hey!" Jason swerved the car sharply around a corner as he batted her hand away. "How many times do I have to tell you, I _'don't'_ dye my fucking hair."

Steph gave him the most unimpressed look she could muster. "Jay, I love you, but your hair was _'orange'_ in Arkham, and then it had the white and then it didn't have the white and now." She reached over, trying to grab at his hair again, but he almost stuck his head out the window to get it out of reach, and then plastered one of his hands over his hair, shooting her a forced glare that Steph returned. "What is the truth?!" She waved her hands in front of her.

Jason huffed, not removing the hand from his hair and side eyeing her every few seconds between watching the road. The he huffed again and leaned back into his seat.

Steph was expecting his reply to be either another denial or the most obvious lie he could think of.

"The white's a Lazarus thing." He said at last, trailing his fingers through the short strands. "Symbolizes a lack of a soul or something." He shrugged and set the hand on the wheels besides his other. "Maybe I just don't like looking at it."

"Oh." Steph blinked at him, then looked abruptly away and fiddled with her seatbelt. "I didn't know that I'm…" She didn't even have the time to actually feel bad about it when her apology was cut short by his absolute failure to hide the grin that was forming on his face.

"You're just being an asshole again aren't you?" She fixed him with a glower.

Jason chuckled through his nose, his shoulders shaking as he rested his head against the steering wheel, shaking his head in denial.

"Oh my God, why?!" Steph was about to punch him for it when a car at the crossroads a head of them loudly honked its horn. "Jason look at the road!" She demanded and his head shot up just in time for him to turn hastily down a side road.

"Shit." Jason tuned sharply back to check that the road was clear, when he'd confirmed that us was, he started messing with the radio, pointedly not looking at Steph, mischief still dancing in his eyes. "It really is from the Lazarus pit though, can't have this…" He flicked at the hair. "When 'm tryna be discreet."

Steph kept her arms folded as they drove on out of the suburbs, trying to develop heat vision and failing miserably when he turned to her with the absolute worst attempt at puppy dog eyes she'd ever seen in her life. Terrible as they were, just the fact that he tried it was endearing.

"Keep your eyes on the road." She huffed at last and leaned her head on his shoulder again.

Jason smiled, and to her surprise, slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

"What about when it was orange?"

"I would never dye my hair orange." Jason said, grinning from ear to ear.

Steph left him with a bruised shoulder for his troubles.

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 **Shorter chapters, faster updates, we'll see how this goes.**


	33. Laser

Gotham could be pretty at night, if you looked at it with the right lens the orange glow of the streetlights made hazy by the city smog. That night, atop the headquarters of the GCPD, cigarette smoke drifted up to meet with the smog as the cities commissioner paced the rooftop in long, slow strides, awaiting the arrival of his company for the night.

The Batsignal stood unlit, no need to advertise what was going on that night, and in the darkness, unless you were looking for it, you would have had no way of knowing there was something going on at all.

Darkness was a bats best friend, unfortunately for the commissioner; it was far from being his.

"Heya Commish!" Batgirl greeted, poking out from behind him and almost, she was sure giving the poor guy a heart attack in the process. It hadn't been intentional, and she felt kind of bad at the momentary shock on his face when he spun to face her. One would have thought he'd have been more used to it by now.

He regained his composure quickly though, and returned the greeting with a nod. "Batgirl, you're early."

"Yeah, gotta get me that worm." Steph folded her arms and nodded sharply, trying to swallow down her nervousness. Truth was she'd arrived early to make sure there'd been no time to set up an ambush. She had a feeling the others would be there soon for similar reasons.

The commissioner moved to take another puff of his cigarette when his eyes suddenly fixed on her head and he lunged forward, Stephanie ducked aside, and in the process got an eyeful on laser. There was some chuckling in her comm and she sighed heavily, attracting a very confused glare from the commissioner before his eyes moved to follow the laser light that was tracing its way across the gravelly surface of the rooftop.

"You're not worried about that?" He asked sounding more resigned than anything, probably still looking for cover.

Steph spread out an arm in the direction of the building across the street, and the commissioner followed her eyes. Jason, crouched on the other side with his sniper rifle waved back, if Steph could have seen her face she knew he'd be grinning. "My friend's just being a drama queen; I don't even think it's loaded.

And apparently, Commissioner Gordon was all surprised out for that evening, because he just nodded wearily and turned to scrutinize the figure across the street. "I ever met this friend before."

"Maaaybe." Steph clasped her hands behind her back, her eyes darting between the two of them.

Gordon drew in a deep pull of his cigarette, the deep red ember glinting off his glasses as he did so, he released the smoky breath slowly, waiting for the smoke to dissipate entirely before he spoke again. "Think you can get him to come closer, like to look him in the eye when I thank him for saving my life."

Across the comm line, Jason sputtered and Steph struggled to stifle a similar sound that might have escaped her.

The look the commissioner leveled her with was less than impressed. "Spend enough time with your kind; you get a feel for these things."

"Uhhh." Steph let out a nervous chuckle. "I don't think so, he's like a moody cat, 'll only come closer if we feed him."

Jason lined his scope up to her again in retaliation; Steph only saw it this time because he made a point of dragging it up along her midsection first. She flipped him the bird.

It seemed that the guy with the sniper rifled being proved harmless, they'd run out of conversation topics. That was just fine with Steph, the only times she'd ever spoken with him had been work related, and if he wasn't going to bring up the oddness of the fact that law enforcement had been called in to mediate for the Bats instead of the other way around, Steph wasn't going to either. Awkward silence was better than awkward conversation any day.

Tim showed up only a few minutes later, seeming to drop from the sky, his cape spread out all around him when touched down on the rooftop. "Commissioner." He nodded at Gordon, then at Steph, "Batgirl." She'd expected some hostility, a in the very least. "You saw the tape?" But Tim was all business; Steph wasn't sure whether to be relieved about that."

"Yeah." Steph nodded, mentally shaking the images out of her brain as Cass slunk across the rooftop, coming to a stop at her side, cocking her head at Steph.

Tim took a drive from his belt, and with the click of a button, it projected a map projected onto the nearest wall. "Plan's simple. We've narrowed the positions of the priority hostages down to five possible locations," Priority hostages, families and friends of the rest. Blinking circles appeared over the aforementioned five locations. "We have a general idea for the others." A portion of the map flashed red. "But it'll be safer to make sure we have something more concrete before making any moves on that." The others being the various dealers and bosses.

He handed the drive off to Cass, and then went to stand closer by the map. If they'd been on better terms, Steph would have cracked a joke about him looking like a weather girl, Cass might have laughed at the expression on his face if nothing else. Right then Cass wasn't even looking at Steph.

"We don't want to risk direct GCPD involvement." He shrugged weakly at the commissioner, an apologetic smile slipped in place. Gordon grunted, obviously less than pleased about being expected to contribute more that his presence to the proceedings. "But there are some undercover detectives in the surrounding areas waiting to move in if it _'does'_ become safe enough." The symbols of each of the Bats appeared around the hostage circles; Robin's was the only one missing. "We'll be waiting each at different locations to pull the hostages out as soon as he's distracted."

"So I'm guessing it's my job to do the distracting." Steph didn't sigh, she'd done plenty of that on the dive over, listening to Jason going on about why that was the most bullshit of bullshit ideas, but they'd both known there weren't any other logical options.

"We'll make for your location as soon as we've found and evacuated them, shouldn't take more than a maximum of two hours." He clicked retrieved the disk from Cass and cocked his head in Jason's direction. "He planning on helping? New Hood won't be looking for him so I've got a couple positions we could use him."

"He's not gonna get in the way." Was all Steph could really say about Jason, he didn't care about their plans, he's already come up with his own and he wasn't going to change it for there's.

"I take it he's going to be your shadow?" Tim asked.

"Pretty much." Steph looked to her side and noticed Cass was actually watching her for the first time since she'd arrived. Steph turned hastily away.

He pulled out a miniature computer and began typing. "Great, that'll give us more time to finish up." He nodded. "Now, we have some contingencies to run through in case something sours." He tossed something oval shaped and about the size of Steph's thumb at her. "If they move you to an unknown location, that tracer'll make sure we can find you."

"Right," Steph turned it over in her hands, studying its smooth white surface. "And if I lose it?"

"Can't." Cass said, a smile forming on her lips. "You swallow it."

"The whole thing?" She looked between Tim and Cass, expecting it to be some kind of joke, but both nodded in sync. "Dontya have a smaller one?"

"I might." Tim said, going back to working on his computer. Yeah, Steph wasn't going to get the smaller one.

"Fine, what else?" Now she sighed.

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Jason didn't like their plan he didn't like it at all. He'd asked her not to go, told her he'd find a way, hat he could ask favors. She wasn't Batgirl anymore they'd taken it and she wasn't obligated to take it back because _'they'_ needed her.

Crouching the way he was for so long hadn't been his best idea, and the stitches pulling at his midsection saw fit to remind him of that every so often. If not for the fact that this was the only easily defensible position that still gave him full view of both the GCPD and the surrounding area, he might have moved, but it wasn't and he had to make sure they didn't try anything, so he was for all intents and purposes stuck.

The shadow looming nearby didn't help much. Jason would have been fine ignoring him, as long as the man didn't move any closer, but a combination of sore muscles, the damned stitches and just a general irritation at the situation at a whole just left him too pissed off to want those eyes on him like that.

"Your theatrical ass gonna hide there all night?" Jason called out, not taking his eyes off his scope, he fixed the light on his replacement, and the little shit actually flipped him off, Jason was tempted to fire a warning shot just because.

"You're one to talk." And shit, he was actually going to try and make conversation wasn't he. Jason would have snorted if he could have been bothered.

"You gonna shove me against the wall again?" He asked instead, tongue darting out to moisten his very dry lips, thankfully hidden behind his half mask. "Picked up a lotta weight since then but 'm curious how long you can hold me for. Didn't threaten your little monster this time though so maybe not so long."

"That night," Bruce came to a stop, the edges of his cape just flickering at Jason's vision, and he tensed up, forcing himself to keep as still as possible. "Talia…"

"Don't." Jason turned the laser to dance over the commissioners shoes; he could practically feel the resting bitch face from here, but he didn't react otherwise, so Jason moved it up to the burning point of his cigarette, wondering what they would do if he shot it out of Gordon's hand. Cancer prevention, very important.

"She told me if I didn't take you from Arkham…"

"I said shut up." Jason tried to add a sing songy air to his voice, but his throat was threatening to close up along with the tension in his lungs that were threatening to suffocate him by now. He tried to focus instead on the comm; they were talking about crocodiles, not Waylon Jones, but actual fucking crocodiles. What the fuck kind of contingencies were they planning for?

"Or she'd take you to…"

"I don't fucking care!" Jason pulled on the reigns of his emotions, trying to stifle them as much as he could, to get some sort of evenness to his voice, this kind of tension wasn't the best for those stitches, and now they were _'really'_ complaining. "Not the worst fucking thing that happened there, not the worst thing that happened _'that'_ day. Gave me something to laugh about over breakfast." He shifted the scope to the batsignal and his trigger finger itched as he imagines the barely audible _'thwip'_ the bullet would make, the louder shattering of the glass, pieces falling from the giant flashlight, tumbling over the edge of the roof.

"You're still injured, you shouldn't be…"

"I don't wanna talk to you anymore." Jason moved the laser back to Red Robin, trying not to focus too much on the symbol, on the words of a dead Bruce from a dead universe that would never be the one speaking to him now. "'M not here for you Bats and your bullshit, so try to arrest me again or butt the fuck out."

Bruce was quiet for just a few seconds, it didn't help, didn't calm Jason in the least because he knew it wouldn't last, because Bruce always had to get in the last fucking word. "If the smallest thing goes wrong, and you…"

"Shut the fuck up." Jason tried to look like he was still focusing on the scope, but he knew anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have seen past it and realize he was just trying his best to _'not'_ look at Bruce. "You don't get to act like you give a fuck about anyone when the only solution you're willing to try is using her as fucking bait." Bruce made the mistake of moving closer and in an instant Jason was on his feet. "If anything happens to her." Jason jabbed his finger in Bruce's direction, wishing he had his helmet to cover up his whole face and not just the lower half. "Anything, and screw your _'greatest failure'_ and _'responsibility'_ for my _'wanton, self destructive path'_ before, I'll make sure I bring down every level of hell on your head and this time you're free to tell everyone it's _'your fucking fault.'_

Bruce didn't make a move, didn't say anything and Jason's breathing was coming out in deep, shuddering breaths that didn't seem to deliver enough oxygen to his lungs. He dropped down, back to his rifle, tried to make it look natural like it wasn't just because he didn't trust his legs to hold him for much longer.

"I'm sorry, Jason."

He listened to Bruce, almost as silently as he'd shown up, then listened some more to make sure he was really gone. Jason turned from the scope pulled off the mask, let it clattered to the ground at his knees so he could pressed his face against the thick gloves covering his hands.

They didn't get to do that, they didn't get to fucking… It wasn't fair.

O

O

O

"Hey." Steph crept up to where Jason was sitting curled up against the half wall, tense as a ball of rubber bands ready to snap. She brought a hand down on his shoulder and he flinched back his head shooting up to face hers. He wasn't wearing his little mask anymore. "You get bored annoying us all with your gun?"

He snorted and let his knees fall from his chest with a weak grin. "Took a nap, everything set?"

"Yeah, deadlines tomorrow, so we don't have a lotta time but…" She shrugged.

Jason stood and before she could react, he'd wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a tight embrace that had her body pulled flush against his.

"Wish I could ask you not to go." His voice was muffled a little against her head and he sighed.

"Wish I could ask _'you'_ not to go." She returned, not referring to the rescue they were about to attempt, the bat ears on the cowl prevented her from tucking her head under his chin like she wanted to.

"And we'd get the same answer, huh?" He huffed, at least a little amused his hold around her tightened and she relaxed further into it, reveling in the warmth and the feel of him as though it were the last time, because for all they knew, it very well might have been.

O

O

O

Static crackled along the edges of the recording, he lighting was bad, showing only as much as its director deemed absolutely necessary, just enough to see the rows upon rows of terrified people kneeling on the ground of indiscernible color.

At the forefront of it all stood the Red Hood, his helmet gleaming under the dim lighting, polished the way his predecessor's had never been.

"This message isn't for Batman, or Robin or any of his other freaks; it's for Batgirl and only Batgirl." He stepped aside, revealing the trembling man chained to the chair behind him. "This man." He rested one gloved hand in his captive's hair. "Is going to die, because of you, because you held the lives of people like him above that of your own family. There is nothing you can do to save him, but these…" He swung out an arm, gesturing at the rest of the people behind him. "If these lives are so important to you, then you can save them by going through what he had to, if not." The Hood brought a gun to his head and pulled the trigger without an ounce of hesitation.

"Come to where you found him and I'll let the less disgusting of these things go free, but I want the rest of your Bats collecting them, out in the open where I can see. I see the police or anyone else helping them and…" He pulled out a canister. "They'll _'all'_ feel what he did. Their lives mean nothing to me and I'll always find more fodder in this city, _'don't'_ try anything."


	34. Hey Arkham

' _Feels like it happened a lifetime ago'_

That wasn't a phrase Jason was prone to using. It was overused in general as far as he was concerned. If there was one thing he'd learned in the two lifetimes he'd lived, it was exactly how it felt to have something happen a literal lifetime ago.

Soldiers who came home from wars, blood soaking their hands, waking up screaming at night at things that weren't there anymore. Remembering a time when that hadn't happened, that was an example good use of the phrase. Some kid walking back to school after summer vacation was just being an overdramatic dumbass.

For Jason, it was easy, the before and afters separated by his death, he had a clear dividing line for what felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. Bragging to Bruce about his historical fashion research, walking through snow with the Titans in sadistically short shorts, trying to convince Bruce he had time for stage crew if not for the actual drama club – he needed to stop thinking about Bruce already. All those things, he had folded safely in his 'other lifetime' box. It was easier that way, the one useful thing he'd learned in Arkham, sitting in that cell day in and out, and he hadn't learned it from any shrink.

Arkham? The actual sitting in that cell, being a plaything in Jeremiah's basement, screaming himself raw. None of that happened in another lifetime. Jason just didn't think about it, pushed it aside and almost always found something else to consume his free brain cells.

That didn't mean that he'd forgotten it, just that he'd made sure to bury it deep as he could, almost as deep as the 'other life' box. And he'd been able to get by. Get out of dealing with it, what he'd done to himself in his stupidity and desperation to prove Bruce wrong.

Now though? Now Jason was scaling the fucking cliff outside of the place, reversing his old escape plan to get himself back inside the damned place. For the first time since he'd decided to do something for Stephanie, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do it. He had to not only get inside Arkham, but get down into _'that'_ basement, on his own, willingly. Not only that, but he was working on a time limit, one that could expire at any moment with absolutely _'no'_ warning and he had to have his head cool and under his complete control the whole way.

So far, that last part wasn't going so well.

Even saying the physical part of it was going _'well'_ was a bit of a stretch. His lungs ached, struggling to process air he was pulling in too hard and fast, the closer he got to his summit, the harder it got. The minor oxygen deprivation had already given him a major fucking headache and his limbs grew weaker all the time. It was more like scaling a mountain than one damned cliff.

His saving grace was, ironically, the part he'd dreaded most when plotting out his route; the powerful crashing of the waves below him. Heavy autumn winds stirred up water to smash against the rocks, dousing him with icy water. It forced him to focus. Where to put his foot? Where to grab on to? The rock was wet and slippery, his mind couldn't afford to stray from the path for long and it knew it.

Jason still cursed up his own personal storm whenever another wave attempted valiantly to drown him; it was a less destructive form of stress release.

The comm unit strapped to his arm beeped every so often, as if to remind him of its presence though he had absolutely no plans of using the thing. He didn't need the distraction of bats chattering in his ears while he was trying to focus. It was enough trouble reaching the top as it was. And by the time he did, he was fucking exhausted.

Jason pulled himself up the last few feet and rolled onto the narrow ledge. He laid there for a couple dozen seconds, looking up at Gotham's over cast sky while he tried to catch his breath, the key work being _'tried'._ Lucky he hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning, he could taste bile in his mouth, so he clipped off his half mask anyway.

Concluding that waiting was _'not'_ going to make it in any way easier, Jason dragged himself up, resting his hands against the wall to help his keep his balance on the very narrow ledge. The wall of the asylum, if he looked up it would loom above him, so he didn't.

An equipment check proved that everything was in working order. The device he'd built to interfere with the cameras that morning worked a lot better than the one he'd made from stolen cellphones back in his cell, and he took a moment to wonder what had become of it before he moved on.

Cameras looping, no one could see him when he jumped up to grab the edge of the window he needed. He picked it and dragged himself within – where he had to pause to pull himself together again. Damnit if this kept up it would be the end of his life sentence by the time he made it to the freaking basement.

The comm beeped and Jason silenced it, he wasn't getting caught because someone who wasn't supposed to heard the thing, but when he tried to shove it in one of his pockets, it was met with resistance. The free hand he reached into his pocket with to investigate came back wrapped around a bag of skittles.

"Stephanie." Jason groaned under his breath. Turning it over in his hand, he saw the sticky note she'd stuck to the back, signed with a smiling Batgirl doodle. It brought a smile to his face, at least for a few seconds. He tore open the back and unclasped his mask to toss a few pieces of candy in his mouth. He still didn't like skittles.

Just focus on the individual steps and he'd get the job done.

In his original plan, getting himself to the laundry had been a priority, one that wasn't possible now due to the laundry being horrendously out of the way, he had to improvise. The first guard of appropriate size he came across – about four bigger than Jason's – got a tiny dart to his neck. Guy'd wake up with a headache and sore neck from the way Jason positioned him between stacks of cleaning supplies in a broom closet, but he'd be fine, probably. Jason waited in a surveillance blind spot for twenty seconds, pressed tightly against a wall, then he deactivated the interference device.

Movement in uniform was easier but not much faster. To avoid catching unwelcome attention, Jason had to work his way closer to his destination via a roundabout route that followed the patrol route of the guy whose clothes he was wearing. He affected a board expression throughout it, taking no note of anyone he passed, none they could see anyway. This was the office side of the building, no crazies around to make anyone feel nervous.

His heart rate sped up when he came to the medical wing; he hooked his thumbs in his pockets to control the shaking of his hands and pressed on. While paralyzed, he'd still been conscious enough during his _'kidnapping'_ – Jason scoffed at the word – to have a general idea, backed up by Dick's very, very extensive plans of the places secret passages (that guy needed to get a life, where had he found the _'time'_?). The one he needed surprisingly wasn't in those plans; the one Arkham had had his taken through after he'd been brought out of the mirror room, but they made it easier to find.

The entrance to said mirror room had been replaced with a door, surprisingly, Jason had to resist peeking inside though he knew from Steph that whatever tapes there'd been of him had been destroyed. He maybe owed Talia a thanks for that one. Jason strode on past it and ducked down a looping service passage, then activated the interference device again.

When he got back to the appropriate hall, Jason slipped into the _'bare'_ office and shifted aside a pile of desks to reveal and access hatch place just a casual observer would assume it led to the storage floor below. His fingers dug into a panel on the wall adjacent the boarded window and ripped it away, revealing a single, simple lever that he pulled only as far as he'd seen Jeremiah do it. His breath stuttered when it opened and the musty smell assaulted his nose. He finished another couple skittles out of the bag in his pocket and moved on.

He'd slipped out of consciousness soon after that the first time and now, looking down into the narrow space, Jason wasn't sure _'how'_ Jeremiah had gotten him down there. As he descended the dark, sloping hallway, Jason lost the uniform, clipping the parts of his own gear he'd had to remove back into place. A guard would look more out of place down there than a mercenary. Jason listened carefully as he went, but for most of the way his own, nearly silent footsteps were all he heard, and that was only because he was listening for them. The three sealed doorways, melded almost seamlessly with the walls marked his progress

It was only once he was nearing a fourth that he started hearing movement, unless Arkham got a rat problem – Ratcatcher meant they usually death with those real quick – that was going to be a Jason problem.

He was supposed to wait near the room where he'd been held, ready to provide backup, that room was still ten minutes away. There wasn't time for him to wipe out any idiots who tossed themselves into his path beforehand. If he'd been solo, Jason might have ignored it, maybe set a charge if he was feeling paranoid. With someone else's life on the line however, Jason paused at the opening and pressed a listening device against it to get a better idea of what he'd been hearing. Breathing it sounded like, hushed demands for quiet, rustling around on the ground.

"Fuck." He whispered. While he hoped he was wrong, as much as he could ever hope for that, he was pretty sure he'd just found the missing ' _hostages_ '. He swallowed, dryly and pushed the nearly dissolved candy around his mouth with his tongue. No one else knew they were there, he was backup, not rescue, they were the Bat's problem, all of them high ranking street dealers, the world wouldn't miss them, Bats wouldn't miss them if Jason kept his mouth shut. Stephanie…

Jason pressed his forehead against the wall. He'd check before he decided, there was still a chance he was wrong, maybe it was just timeout for misbehaving guards, or fucking hide-and-seek team building. It could be fine.

O

O

O

The lack of instructions on how she was supposed to reach the meeting point was all the instruction Steph needed. Mister Fake Hood knew she'd been in there before, maybe even that she'd been the one to take Jason out, so at the very least there was no need for subtlety. Now she did it again, the same way she had before, and feeling very much the same as she had that night.

Tension and apprehension swirled in her gut. Unlike then, Steph wasn't alone, backup was less than a call away, backup she'd actually make use of this time, as soon as the other bats got the hostages out. Jason hadn't told anyone how he was planning on getting inside, and Steph didn't need to think too hard about the whys of him not wanting the bats to know what would have been his escape route. Hopefully there'd be no heart stopping speed-runs to Leslie's this time.

It wasn't fear that stilled her when she hopped out of the boat and looked down the dark entranceway. She could get her way out of just about anything he tried to do to her. Going off her encounter with the guy who fancied himself the Red Hoods replacement was proof enough of that. The last time she'd been there, when she'd seen the evidence of what had happened, what had been on the verge of happening since long before that, to Jason… Part of Steph was worried she'd have to see something like that again, that she'd go off on this Hood Guy the way she had Jeremiah.

Apparently it took her a little too long to stifle her indecision, cause a couple minutes later there were a trio of guys coming down the passage to invite her in.

"He's ready for you, come on." One said tilting his head inside. Steph couldn't see his face, couldn't see any of their faces past the thick balaclavas they had on, but she followed after them anyway, dragging her feet a little as she went, stalling.

The one who'd spoken headed up the front and the other too flanked her from behind. As if she would run, as if they could have stopped her if she'd decided to run. Their path took them through almost the same sticky halls as Steph had before, but unlike that time, she didn't let her cape cover her from it all despite the same prickly feeling jabbing her at every opportunity.

Why did so many criminals have to pick the absolute creepiest places they could get for these kinds of things, and the few who didn't were never the kind Steph went up against. Really, if super powered aliens weren't setting themselves on Metropolis every other week she might have considered moving there. It was doubtful Lex Luthor did his evil plotting in the creepy sub basement of an asylum.

Steph let her thoughts run; focusing on her surroundings just enough to memorize the little details of the route they were taking and the mannerisms of her escorts. It helped to know if they were going to pull a gun on her.

It was only once they were deeper that she started noticing little nozzles set along the walls, connected to thick black pipes. They hadn't been there before and Steph had a bad feeling they hadn't been set up in case of a fire. No outward sign that she was bothered showed on her body language, carefully squashed under plans for a temporary city change with Kara. Maybe Jay would like Metropolis; there were fewer dive bars, but still plenty good food, no Batman.

She'd ask him when this was over, if she could convince Tim to help her convince the others to leave him alone for just a couple… Okay, that train of thought did affect her body language, so Steph had to put a stop to it.

Light poured in, golden and bright from the next corner they'd turned, it came from _'there'_ the same room where she'd found him. Steph kind of hoped this new Asshole Hood was one of the asshats that had done it so she wouldn't feel bad when she beat him into the ground.

The room, cavern, whatever, was cleaner than it had been when she'd last seen it. Equipment that Jason's escape and her shortly following attack had scattered about was now set up neatly off to one side, along with a bed. The lighting was bright, like it would have been for a medical procedure. On the other side was a wall of monitors, and there he stood, Looser Hood before the feeds from the dozens of rooms making up his evil lair. One of those rooms containing at least fifty people tied and bleeding on the ground.

"You know what to do with her." His voice was even more distorted than it had been last time, something between a high, inhuman growl and a hiss with voice of legion thrown in for good measure. Yeah, he was definitely trying too hard.

Her escorts led her deeper into the cavern and she let her eyes rove around, now she got a better look at the place she could see that it really wasn't all that much cleaner than it had been before. There were still traces of blood on the floor, Jason's and the guards' he'd gone through to get out, Arkham's when Steph had come along.

The bed, Steph could feel blood rushing to her head when she looked closer at the bed. She'd thought it was rust covering the bars, what with the saltwater humidity in the air, but the patches of filthy reddish brown had pooled and dried on the off color plastic mattress too. From a certain angle, she could pick out the shape of a person in it, a shape she covered over with her own when the men tried to help her onto it and she brushed them off.

It was the same bed that had held Jason, hadn't even been cleaned. Disgust wormed its way into her chest; she swore she could feel his blood flaking off even under the thick fabric of her costume. For someone who claimed to be the Red Hood's ' _legacy_ ', dressed up like Jason and thought he knew what the fuck he was talking about, this guy was a real fucking piece of work. If not for those people, she might have strapped the piece of crap in it and dunked him in the ocean a few times.

He turned, slowly, his hands still clasped behind his back, and he must have read something of her expression, because his body language gave away something like amusement, almost pity that his face couldn't. "Don't." He pulled a little back box out from under his jacket and waved it at her. "You saw the installations." He nodded to the walls, where there were more of the nozzles. "Anything I don't like and everyone but me is dead. I have more triggers."

"Wouldn't dream of upsetting you." Yeah, because any dreams with this creep in it would have been nightmares. Steph kept her voice carefully neutral, because chipper was just way too out of her reach. Ripping her thoughts from the bed – not even hosed off, bastard – she looked at the monitors, the people. If she could just find a way to send a message through her comm without him noticing she wouldn't need any triggers. This whole thing would go only that much faster.

"I feel bad for you." He said, walking towards her, Steph kept most of her attention on the hostages. "Didn't think you'd come, that your family would sacrifice y, you for that." He pointed it the people. "They're disgusting, but your family gave him for them too so I shouldn't be surprised."

"No one sent me, it was me you asked for, any one of us woulda come." There was something weird with the monitors, but Steph couldn't quite place it. It was distracting enough that she barely felt the irritation at the implication that she was beholden to the other bats or something, that they would have had to force her to come and save those people. "Even Hood wouldn't have let you murder a bunch of innocent people to get at drug dealers."

Not a whole lie, Jason might have come but Steph didn't see him watching as the guys slowly wrapped the straps around his arms. Steph averted her gaze when the buckles snapped into place, her mouth going dry as Batman's sense of humor. It would be okay; she could cut through them with her gauntlets.

"Don't talk about him." Even through the modulation, he actually sounded pissed the fuck off, and again she found something about him was familiar. Something that wasn't just his attempt at imitating Jason. "This is YOUR fault, for what you did to him, he would have wiped that filth out." He jabbed his finger in the direction of the monitors without looking at them, stomping over to her. "Y, you don't get to lie about him too."

"If we'd known what that bastard was doing to him we woulda stopped it." Steph didn't have to put any effort into making her tone sincere, not with Jason's blood pressing against her cheek, in _'this'_ room, though she didn't think the Hoodster cared. Yeah, there was definitely something off with the recordings, unless that guy had really keeled over in the span three minutes and jumped right back up. "There's a reason Jeremiah wound up in hospital when we found him." And dead, the doctor had also wound up dead not long after that. Steph wondered if the Bats caught the guy who'd done that, she hadn't kept up with that part of the investigation.

"It's was never just Arkham!" The guy yelled right in her ear and Steph tilted her head only slightly to look at him, as if it hadn't startled her at all. "No I _'thought'_ about Arkham, I thought about it every day when I watched him, he, it had to be part of his plan, _'that's'_ why he never left, he was waiting and it was working wasn't it." He paced around as he talked, waving his arms about. That's why they sent _'you'_ to tip the staff off and spy on him. But he was too strong, wasn't he? That's why you had to get rid of him. How much of a threat could he have BEEN, after Arkhams experiments got him?"

"My guy, I dunno what to tell you." It was hard keeping her expression neutral after all that, was that something Jason had thought? He'd accused her of spying on him nearly every one of the visits where he'd actually spoken to her, could he have thought the others had handed him to Arkham too? Probably not once the Doctor started asking about the bats, but before that? Jason never hinted to her that he had, but that didn't mean…

No. Steph ripped that train of thought from its tracks and focused on the monitors again. Either Hoody was looping the footage on purpose, or someone else was there already, screwing with his security. And that someone had been there for at least three minutes already. In the latter case, all she had to do was play distraction, when all the hostages were gone, his little installations wouldn't count for anything. "You wanna make up a story then go ahead, but everyone and their uncle knows the bats tore this place apart looking for him we couldn't _'find'_ him in time, and if you were _'watching so closely'_ and you didn't help us then that's your fault too!"

Being in the hero game as long as she had, Steph wasn't unnerved by the strength of the glare she could feel through that helmet, all of his attention focused on her, but she affected the expression. Looking at both her and the monitors at the same time wasn't possible, Steph just had to hold that attention.

"Bats always know, but I thought you _'didn't'_ , that you cared enough to stop it, but y, y, you're a fucking liar like the rest of them." He said. Before Steph could ask where the hell he was getting his information from, he turned back to the monitors swinging another trigger at them Steph tried to yank her way out of the straps, to get his attention away from them again. When she couldn't and he pressed down on a side button anyway she expected the gas, none came and the monitors changed. No more real time footage of the underground network, but instead the footage was of… her? "I _'know'_ you got him. WHAT did you d, do to him?!"

Steph's response to his accusation died on her tongue. She watched herself in fast-forward; slamming the access hatch open and storming past the cameras. It cut off before she got to this room, where she'd beat the ever loving crap out of Arkham, because she'd found and destroyed that footage, but how hadn't the bats found the rest of it? Steph hadn't been able to, hadn't even really thought to look in her rush to drag Jason to Leslie's.

"How did you get this?" Steph asked, turning her eyes on the Imposter Hood, standing tense at her side. She refused to watch herself after she'd gotten Jason, refused to watch him trying to move along with her, but she could remember it well enough that she didn't have to, remembered things the tapes didn't. The weight on him against her back, the trembling running through every inch of him, the stutters of breath against her ear that kept giving out.

Hood waved his arm and the other men practically ran out of the room. They were so fast, their boss barely had to pause before he reached up for his helmet, and clicked off the release, a little clumsily, as though he still wasn't entirely used to the action. He didn't wear a mask under it, only Jason was that extra, but she would have recognized him even if she had.

"Oh Jeff, I'm super disappointed in you." She breathed, her chest sinking a little at Baker's furious face. Figured Arkham couldn't have one moderately sane employee, could it?

O

O

O

Jason found his way into the other side of the wall via an incredibly roundabout route that left him _'covered'_ in spiders. Screw some lucky idiot getting a shot in, he was dying from anaphylactic shot this time, he knew it.

Too many tight squeezes and sharp corners for him to bring much of his equipment along, so he'd had to strain his ears to hear whatever the hell was going on the whole way. Now he could see easily enough that it wasn't, unfortunately, a game of hide and seek. Not a very friendly one at least. It wasn't fine. It was a two story room full of people he hated and the one's guarding him were very well armed on walkways above his head.

Now this, this was exactly the kind of situation that would have merited the 'set a charge and move on' scene. He hadn't come to save these kinds of people, they were the kinds of people that needed saving from him. He hadn't really come to save any people but leaving these here would do just that. Jason pulled his goggles – another new pair – off his eyes so he could press the pads of his thumbs into them.

Saving them meant wasting time he'd need to get to Stephanie, but if she found out he'd left them… Even if she never found out, he would know and if this were one of the last things he did in connection with her before he left...

Holding back a groan, Jason moved his hands to pass through his hair – it needed a cut again – then lowered his goggles.

Up and to his left there was a click, and the barrel of a gun glinting down at him through the boards of the staircase he was crouched under. Jason fished some more skittles out of his pocket.

Fuck.


	35. Boss

Seriously, fuck Arkham and every tile and speck of dust therein. Fuck the family it was named after too.

"We've already seen you, come…"

"Yeah, I know, I know." Jason his half mask back into place and crunched down on the skittles in his mouth, or tried to, there was more, squishing between his teeth than crunching where skittles were involved. He stuck his hands in the pockets at his thighs as he came out from under the stairway, spinning a gun in his raised hand and ignoring the rush of his increased heart rate. "I've been found out, bested by your superior intelligence, oh my goodness however shall I get myself out of this crummy conundrum."

The fucktards pointing their guns at him from the walkways weren't very impressed with that, Jason heard an oddly familiar 'oh my god' somewhere in there, but none of them took advantage of the seconds since he'd emerged to shoot him. Good, good, not being shot at was always a good thing. A couple of them shifted and Jason would have thought they seemed confused. _That_ not so good. If they hadn't shot yet, there was a bigger reason than Jason's running mouth. Best not to give them a reason to get over that reason.

"Oh wait." With a gasp, Jason pulled his left hand out of his pocket, bringing the same trigger stupidly obvious trigger he'd used against the bats in that alley not too long ago. His thumb pressed down on the shiny red button _._ And there was the reaction, the sliding clicks of safety's being switched off, some footsteps rushing towards him. If there were any more of them, he's probably feel their eyes burning the hand he had wrapped around the trigger. "Dead man's switch. Any of you brain donors take a shot or contact the freak in the hood, I take my finger off the button and you're all dead."

Worked with the bats, and Jason highly doubted anyone willing to work for that copycat was smarter than they were. For a few heartbeats, there was no response, nothing aside from a handful of the 'hostages' near him trying to back away. Then some wise guy moved to try and shoot him. Jason's handgun was in his hand before he'd really thought about it, before he saw one of the other guys moving in to stop the other from taking the shot, two bangs echoed way too loudly in the large, space and wise guy no longer had knee caps.

Then there was the screaming and the scuttling away from him Jason had expected, but also some weird staring he really hadn't. He had a fake trigger and some bullets he couldn't use to kill anyone. Stalling was his best bet. Stalling like Stephanie was stalling, like she couldn't be any more if these bastards contacted their boss about an intruder, when she got out, then he'd figure out what the fuck he was going to do about himself, until then… stalling.

"You wouldn't!" Someone yelled over wise guy's screaming. "You'd be dea…"

"Body armor dipshit." Jason patted his chest and very obviously telegraphed rolling his eyes so they could see it despite the goggles. "Any other questions? And if one of them is a variation of, 'Why would we listen to you.'" He said the last part in a higher pitch as he wiggled the trigger. "I will gladly release future generations of this planet from having to suffer your genes." Jason's tongue moved candy around his very dry mouth again in the pause he gave them to make their objections known. Good, now to see how far he could push things before they broke down around him."Nothing? Good, now…"

"The hell you think you are?" It wasn't shouted, not quite, but the interruption stunned Jason for just a moment where he expected again to be turned into a human approximation of Swiss cheese. "Think anyone here's gonna give a crap about you with the Red Hood's down the hall?"

The Swiss cheese approximation did not occur and the short silence from Jason appeared to unnerve more than incite them.

"Pissed off and not in the mood for bullshit from the dumbasses stupid enough to not only believe that _village idiot's_ the real thing 's who I am. Fricker sticker can't shoot for shit and walks like he's got a golf club up his ass but sure, add a foot to him and he's a dead ringer for the Hood, huh?" Jason was bitter, so sue him. Someone had to masquerade as him, very least they could do was make an effort. He hated idea that everything he'd done could be claimed by some nobody who'd gotten their hands on a mask. Sure, he wasn't proud of all of them, but they were still things _he'd_ done, him and _not_ the mask he'd been wearing when he'd done them. He'd had quite enough of his being replaced and having his life rewritten already.

"Sweet Jesus." One of those who'd just been staring blurted out touched his fingers to his head and shoulders in a cross, as though to ward off something evil, the others were whispering between themselves. A couple of the potential shooters looked just that much more willing to tack off the _potential_ there. Those, Jason eyed, kept his arm loose so he could take them out before they got a shot in, maybe the unconscious sack that had tried to shoot him earlier and the trigger in his hand would be enough of a deterrent, maybe not. He'd have to be ready either way, and he predicted he had thirty seconds _tops_ to figure out how to do that.

There was a stash of sedative laden smoke bombs in one of the pockets at his left thigh. To use them effectively, he'd need to gather everyone up together, he could take them all out, but if he did and regular check ins were part of this security detail, the plan was fucked up. He'd have to get out right after, get to Stephanie before that happened and drag her out. Hard enough when he didn't know exactly where she was or how to get from here to there. Then there was still convincing her to go along with it when the Bats hadn't given the all clear on the other hostages throughout the city.

Either way, it was a crapfest.

Jason was wracking his brain for another plan when one of the indistinguishable whispers sounded distinctly like a 'suppose to be dead.' He snapped his head – and his gun – in the direction of that one.

"Got something to share with the class there?" Jason bit the words out, cocking his head to the side.

"You're… He said you were dead." The guy's voice was shaking, standing with his arms, his gun, at his sides, staring at Jason in much the same way as Bruce had the night Jason had first taken off his helmet in Bruce's presence with the intensity divided by like, three hundred but still.

After that, a look at the rest of them proved that many had taken on a similar posture.

What the fuck?

O

O

O

"Kay Jeff, listen, I get you're mad okay." The bindings around Steph's right hand were proving a tiny bit tougher to break through than her left, but she was fairly sure she could get her legs out without too much trouble. Not that either of those things meant a damn if she wasn't given the all clear before the former Arkham guard pumped her full of the proto-frenzy they'd used on Jason. "But there's a _whole_ lot you don't get about this."

"I _know_ what happened, I _saw_ what happened, you won't lie to me like you did to him, to make him trust you." He was busy setting up a camera on a tripod. "So he'd be weak enough for you to get rid of him."

Steph took a moment to wonder if it had really been Talia who'd had the tapes up in Arkham burned, if everything that had happened after Jason had left Arkham had really been her. Some of it was, obviously, there was no denying that she'd been the one to kill Jason's old therapists, but a lot of the other Arkham staff. It had seemed weird from the start, how quickly everyone who'd known about Jason had been killed, too fast for Talia's careful way of operation. It was just a hunch and one Steph had no way of knowing how much, if any truth there was in it, but she had to wonder. And then, they'd never caught the guy who'd gotten to Jeremiah Arkham in hospital.

"Okay, no." Steph wanted to lick her lips, she wanted to so badly, but she wasn't sure how signs that she was nervous would come off. "He wasn't gotten rid of, he's _fine_ and if you let me up, and you let those people go I'll call him right up for you, okay?"

Baker snorted and wiped his gloved thumb over the lens of the camera in a circular motion, as if there was any blood to wipe off. "S, so desperate. If he were _okay_ he would have show up again, he wouldn't have let those things stay on the streets." He stilled, and when he turned to look at Steph again, there were deep creases in his forehead. "You know, I _almost_ thought he was back once, we could have looked for him together, but the, we could have looked for him together, but then you, _you,_ " And then she'd called him a half assed rip off. He stalked over to the bed, hovered over her as if he were a demented balloon. "If you'd _actually cared_ about your brother, you would have _helped._ "

"You think he would have turned up again, and okay, that part is…" Steph shrugged her shoulders as much as she could in her current position. "I was kinda expecting it too, and he did come back, just not how _you_ wanted him too, cause you really don't know what's going on here." Steph watched his face closely for signs she was pushing him over his rage threshold, cause that would have been, like, really bad for her right then. "Case in point he's _not_ my brother, I just…"

"I told you to stop _lying_ if that were true he wouldn't have let you near him." His hands were clenching at his sides, but he hadn't moved for the drug.

"Why would I _lie_ about something that would make you go easier on me?" Steph's eyes flickered too the monitors again, where that one guy had keeled over yet again. Baker's nose screwed up a little, his eyes flickering from side to side, he didn't say anything, so Steph did. "I just told you guys that so you'd let me in, that was actually the first time I met him. You wanna say you care about him, and you _honestly_ believe he woulda attacked someone for _daring_ to talk to him?" Later, Steph would be amused by the irony of family type people being the ones he might attack for talking to him. "C'mon, really? Do we even _look_ alike?"

Granted, orange hair, pale, scruffy, _huge_ and then too thin, Jason had looked quite a bit different in Arkham than had after, and Baker had never seen Steph without the mask. But Jason had never had even a superficial resemblance to her even then.

"He _would_ have come back." Baker insisted, growling near her face, his deodorant had a _really_ strong smell, not bad but artificial and he just wore _too much_ of it.

"He _did._ " Steph had literally said that already, she didn't roll her eyes, rolling eyes at guy's with needles when you were strapped down was never a good idea, and Steph couldn't get out of those straps just then, so all eyes rolling would have to be saved for a later date.

Baker had no such reservations, he shook his head at her and plucked up a vial of bright red and pushed a needle past it'd rubber barrier. Steph let her body language slip and flinched back when he came nearer, she gave herself a second to snatch a look at the monitors behind Baker's head.

"Don't worry." He said, almost gently, resting his hand and the syringe on the rails of the bed, the needle close enough that if Steph moved her head, it would poke at her cheek, _oh crap_. Steph's head was assaulted by images from the clips she'd seen, of Jason strapped to this bed, with that drug flowing through his veins, screaming. "I know he wouldn't have wanted me to _kill_ you, he'd be so angry. Are you r,ready."

' _Please hurry, please hurry.'_ On the monitors, a guy keeled over again. Then he was gone. The static shifted and the room holding them was empty as Steph's fridge.

"Oh thank god." Steph breathed out, along with all the burning tension that had been clogging up her lungs, she sagged against the bed and shut her eyes for a couple seconds. When she opened them, Baker was still hovering above her, needle at the ready and his head cocked aside in confusion. Steph grinned. "Well there's one thing you're right about." Steph twisted her arm again, letting the blades on her gauntlet saw through more of the leather binding her to the bed. "The real Hood's gonna be pissed. Lucky you I'll get to ya before he does."

"What?" He growled out.

Steph let her grin spread wider as she turned her head jerked her head at the screens. Baker turned, slowly at first, then all at once, when he noticed his lack of hostages. The bats would have gotten the rest out by now too. He had no leverage.

With an enraged shout, Baker spun back to Stephanie. She yanked her hand free of it's bonds and grabbed hold of the man's wrist before he could pierce her with the needle, she yanked it forward and buried it in the fabric besides her head instead, then twisted roughly to break it off. He jerked back to get out of her hold and got a heavy combat boot to the chest. Getting the rest of herself free was the work of a couple seconds for Steph, not enough time for him to right himself for any kind of retaliatory attack.

Then she was on him again, a fistful of his stolen jacket bunched up in her hand, she reveled in the stretched when she pulled back her arm and crashed her armored knuckles into his face hard enough to knock him from her grasp. The camera and tripod were both knocked to the filthy ground, crushed under the weight of his body.

"Something else you don't know about the bats." Steph twisted her arm and displayed the blades that most dismissed as a decorative element of the suit, it would have been cooler if they'd glinted in the dull lighting, but matte equipment was better for tactics. "You gotta always be prepared for the fact that we're always gonna be more prepared than you are."

Baker got to his feet and scrambled back from her, he pulled something out of his pocket and without a gloating word, clicked down on the end of the trigger. Steph paused in her pursuit of him when the monitors all turned to displaying the pipes running along the length and breadth of the underground tunnels beneath the asylum. She didn't have to wonder long what exactly was going on there before a low hissing answered that question for her and the nozzles she'd noticed along the walls began spitting out red clouds.

"Goodbye Batgirl."

Uh Oh.

O

O

O

Jason had been supervising the loading of the last dozen or so hostages through the tunnels, up and out of the imposters little hidey hole when the gas had gone off. "Get a move on!" He ordered and stowed away his gun, he turned to run in the opposite direction without waiting for the litany of. "Got it Boss," or, "Yes Boss," that followed.

If those idiots had any idea what Jason had actually done to the bastards with the misfortune of calling him that before, he had a feeling they would have been a lot less co-operative. But then, far as he could tell, the dumbasses the imposter had recruited for himself weren't the kind – heavy dealers, predator's, major scumbags – that Jason would have roped in on his own either, so what the hell.

He didn't want to think too hard about it. No harder than he wanted to think about the tunnels he was now sprinting through, relying on his tech to provide his with every measure of stealth he'd tossed into the metaphorical engine in exchange for more speed.

Hostages were free – well, free-ish at least – hired help either neutralized or er, converted, and the ringleader had already played his trump card. There was nothing to be gained by stealth now, nothing at all.

Then why were Jason's legs so still, the muscles rebelling against his will and trying to slow his progress in spite of the urgency he could feel thrumming through his bones.

He remembered being wheeled down here, the little fits and starts of wakefulness during the trip when he'd tried to grab hold of each and every little detail that might have aided in his eventual escape. An escape he'd been so sure would come before any real damage had been done to him, easier than escaping from the main building by far.

Being picked for Arkham's psycho experiments hadn't been on the agenda, but he'd been sure he'd get himself out of it like he'd gotten himself out of everything else life had tossed his way. If not for Stephanie…

And now she was there wasn't she, in that room, with another bastard who had needles and poison and more gall than fucking brains. Trying to save a handful of gutter rats who didn't deserve even the _consideration._

If she was strapped down like he had been, screaming and seeing things and _alone._ He wouldn't allow it, _couldn't_ allow it. Jason felt his lungs seizing up, green flooding over his vision if thick tendrils that overpowered the traces of fear he'd let creep in. When he got his hands on that impostor he was going to rip it's head of and feed it to croc, watch it's body get torn to shreds and…

Jason reached the hallway he'd watched from the bed he'd been strapped to, the two men guarding the end of it went down without ceremony, then he flung himself through the entrance way and into the room _that_ room and…"

"Nevermind he's here." Her voice, accompanied by the frantic clacking of keys as she stood, silhouetted before the huge monitors displaying an empty labyrinth that was quickly being filled with red smoke. Her face was covered by the combination of her mask and rebreather, and Jason had to stomp down on the green to keep it from prompting him to rip them off and see if it was really her. "Tryna get Oracle into the system to shut this thing down, Asshat Hood ran down thataway." She cocked her head at a side passage, but didn't remove her bright eyes from her work.

He stalled, looking between her and the passage, he didn't want to leave, it was dangerous and there was smoke and of he left her alone down here then she'd be just like he…

"Jay, go!" She urged and the typing became still more frantic.

"Yeah, right." Jason started in the direction of the passage, but paused again before he reached it, there was something he felt he was supposed to say, or to do, one of his arms raised itself from his side unbidden to reach for her. With a shake of his head that had the added benefit of dislodging whole swaths of the green, Jason dropped the limb. "Right." He took off for the passage and pushed down the remembrance of the time he'd spent in it. Now wasn't the time.

The smoke got thicker still with second that passed, with every step he took down the passage, his mask protected him from inhaling any of it, but he was having a hard time seeing three feet in front of him through the swirling mass of red. It's barely a dozen meters in when he noticed them.

Dressed in torn, filthy clothes, they reeked of unwashed bodies and excrement, like they'd been left lying there for months and months in their own filth. They groaned, and when the smoke got thicker their groans got louder, stronger.

Jason paid them no mind, wrote them off as more frenzy test subjects buried too deeply in withdrawal to pose any kind of a threat. Then the groaning turned to twitching, and jerking, and standing, and, lunging at him.

He'd wasted enough time already without having to get past a wall of crazed, drugged up junkies too. He dodged under a swipe and instinctively slid his guns into his hands, ready to send them all to an unceremonious mass grave before he remembered that some of them, hell maybe even most of them hadn't been brought their by choice. He traded the guns for his knife and his fist as they set upon him, trying to push him back by the sheer force of all of them throwing their weight on him at once.

If Jason couldn't feed the bastard to Killer Croc he was sure as hell giving that little poser the beat down of a lifetime when he caught up to him.


	36. Alone

Normally, in normal fights – normal as they got when most of them involved supervillains – the thing Steph felt most was the adrenaline rushing through her bloodstream. It powered the kicks and the punches that sent her enemies sprawling, made her flips feel more like flying, made her feel more awake and alive, even if she was only peripherally aware of it.

This fight was different, she still felt alive, but maybe a little too awake, a little too giddy for the beating down of a couple of people who'd just sucked in way too much of the drugs in the air after what might have been a long while of withdrawal.

Then again, she **was** fighting those guys and she did have to get through them to Jason who was on the other end of the tunnel trying to beat them back and pick the lock on a heavy steel door at the same time. So, not really the time to be thinking about how she was feeling different in the middle of a fight.

In a move that shouldn't have aggravated her shoulder wound, but didn't, she used the back of one guy as a springboard to carry her over about a dozen more and landed on the guy who'd been about to try smacking Jason over the head with a rock. "Your knight in dark, matte and not shiny at all armor has arrived!" She spread out her arms and grinned, though he couldn't see it in past the rebreather that covered the lower half of her face.

" You'll forgive me if I'm a little too preoccupied for swooning." His grabbed an arm that came to him and twisted it behind its owners back, then got out a length of wire to bind the guy's arms behind his back before kicking him away.

Steph had to duck a swing that grazed her rebreather, almost knocking it off her face before she could answer. "You can swoon," she used the momentum of the punch to spin around and deliver a roundhouse to the guy's chest and send him skidding into a huddle of his fellows like a smelly bowling ball, "later."

"Actually, I might swoon now." Jason sent his eyes heavenward, then fixed them on her like the most adoring puppy to ever adore a human being. "Can never get enough of a good roundhouse".

Steph hummed, and though it wasn't exactly the most effective move she had, spun into another roundhouse and kicked the next closest guy into the crowd, knocking them even further back.

"Okay, that's it, I'm swooning," Jason fell down to kneel by the electric locks on the door again. "I hope you're happy."

"Just get the door open." Steph held back a chuckle, even more giddy now, bordering on being a little nauseous even as she pulled out her staff to face their assailants.

Jason gave her a sloppy salute, not turning away from his work while Steph swept the feel out from under the dazed men trying to get at them. It was easy to keep them back without hurting them too badly, really easy, but Steph doubted Baker dumped them there to put up a fight. No, they were meant to stall, keep Jason and Stephanie in place for when the guys with the guns got to them. Steph kept her eyes peeled, watching the back of the tunnel closely, but there were no signs of the cavalry arriving.

"Hey, Jay, I was thinking." Steph struck out with the staff, this time hearing a very distinct crack when it made contact with a leg, "Sorry." She surprised herself by chuckling.

"Uh huh." Someone got close enough to make a grab for Jason, he ducked under the reaching arm, twisted and tossed the guy right into Steph's waiting staff.

"Maybe, we can go somewhere." There weren't that many left, but enough that Steph was really hoping that door opened soon, her shoulder wound may not have hurt right then, but she had a suspicion the pain would come roaring back at the most inopportune moment. When she was breathing hard and backed up against the door was very likely to be that moment.

"Howsabout, the other side of this door for now?" Jason kicked the nearest guy away and wrapped his arms around Steph to yank her with him to the other side of the door.

When he let go of her she stumbled her first few steps, the light nausea she'd felt before doubling over three times in the matter of a couple of seconds as the door slid shut behind them, trapping the red of the frenzy gas on the other side.

"I think maybe we can…" something was wrong, her mind was working too slowly even while the rest of her felt like she'd ingested a case full of energy drinks, and what could almost be described as euphoria was so extremely out of place in this situation, she couldn't… she fell behind.

"Sunshine?" Jason said softly, and turned to look at her over his shoulder, worry shining through his expressive eyes.

Steph chuckled through her heavy breaths. "That's, so cute…

Her world went sideways, the edges so soft and fuzzy, she half expected that the ground would feel like a pillow when she hit it. Ow, not a pillow, but it was still soft, still a lot softer than. It wasn't the ground.

"Hey, hey look here, **look** at me." His voice was soft, but the gentleness couldn't completely hide the edge as he rolled her over and snapped his fingers in front of her face. "What's going on, what'd he do to you?"

Steph forced her mind to cooperate, remembered the guy who'd gotten a hit in when she'd first joined the fight with Jason. "My rebreather." It'd already been a little banged up, that must've widened the crack too much.

Jason's hands felt around her head and he clipped the rebreather off her cowl, turn it around in his hands. "Fuck." He sounded angry. That meant he wouldn't say yes to going with her to Metropolis, huh? "Look here Stephanie." His hands holding onto her face.

She tried to look, really, but she couldn't, her eyes would barely stay open, never mind keeping them on him, and her head kept lolling to the side.

"Hold on." Jason said, and the next thing Steph knew she was being lifted up, his arms closing around her. "I'm taking you outta here."

"But Baker." Steph dragged her mind back into place; they were supposed to be doing a job, that was why they were there.

"Fuck Baker." He didn't hesitate a second before replying.

"No, Jay, we have to get 'im, f'we don't…" If they didn't, the whole thing could have started all over again, more rooms of dead people, more rooms of people so deep into withdrawal or so high, they were little more than attack zombies. Even if she couldn't think properly, she knew how terrible that would have been.

"No!" Jason barked the word out, startling Steph, then he held her closer, pressed her head into the crook of his neck, and whispered again. "No."

"Have to, 'll be… fine, doesn' hurt." It didn't, it made her nauseous and giddy and slow, but there wasn't any pain, not yet.

"Okay." He knelt down and gently laid Steph on the ground. He clipped his half-mask of and pressed his lips to Steph in a kiss that was so soft and brief is shouldn't have burned the way it did. "Okay." He slipped his mask onto Steph's face, and she tried to push it away.

"You need…"

"I **need** to know you're safe, just in case the gas leaks through the door."

This was wasting time, Steph slowly unwrapped her fingers on his wrist and let him adjust a dial on the mask so it would close around Steph's jaw.

"Back soon, and we'll go somewhere, okay." He cupped the back of her head and pressed his brow against hers. Steph did her best to nod. Then he was gone, taking all of his warmth with him.

 **000**

Baker. A familiar name, but it didn't spark much in Jason, not enough to change what was going to happen when Jason got his hands on him.

Green licked at the edges of Jason's vision as he ran through the tunnels, blocking out his peripherals, but that was fine, he knew where he was going, what he was doing. If he was going to do it without ripping that bastard to pieces, stitching him back wrong, and tossing him into a lazarus pit, the less Jason could see, the better.

He tried not to focus on where he'd left her, on her eyes, blank and too bright at the same time, her body gone lax. Every step he took away was like trying to run through a current, every muscle in his body rebelling against getting further away from her. Against not stopping and going back before she was cold and stiff, gone beneath one of the worst places on Earth.

She wouldn't have been stiff though, not for hours. She'd probably still be warm, warm enough that he'd think she was still alive right up until the medics took her away and never brought her back, just like…

Jason picked up his speed even more, he shouldn't have, it was stupid, and he could feel the uncomfortable pull of his stitches against the skin they were meant to be holding together, coming close to tearing apart. The alternative was slowing down, so he ignored it and kept going.

It wasn't long before he heard the harried footsteps ahead of him, just a few seconds later and he got a look at his quarry, running from him in his old outfit, the red of the mask glinting in the sparsely set light bulbs. Jason had never let it get that shiny unless he's wanted to be seen.

Dick had painstakingly made some very extensive maps of the areas he'd explored, maps Jason had studied closely before going back to Arkham, and according to those, there were only two ways this path would branch too. The pretender was trying for the one that would lead out and into the open, Jason tossed a grenade in his path and Baker turned to sprint the other way just as it shook the place with a resounding **BOOM** , to a records room. No way of knowing if it was really a dead end as Dick's maps had indicated, but Jason was sure he'd catch up to the bastard before he got out. Baker wasn't getting away.

Baker turned, and fired a gas canister over his shoulder, red exploded out of it, obscuring Jason's vision for the three seconds it took him to run through the cloud, breathing into his elbow to keep from inhaling any of it. It was enough time for Baker to reach the end of the hallway and vanish through the door that had been so graciously left open for Jason to burst through.

Just as he was about to pull down his goggles to search the darkness for where amongst the maze of filing cabinets his quarry had vanished though, one of said cabinets dropped down from one of the higher stories. Jason fell into a handspring, rolling out of its path and right into the path of another, shit, one of stitches had definitely popped after that.

Jason growled as his feet settled on the second cabinet as the deafening **clang** 's of them crashing to the ground faded out. No need for the goggles, he got a good look at the man standing above him.

"New costume, or just new?" His voice was metallic; the voice modulator cranked up so high it removed any trace of emotion. "You know who you're working for." He heaved another filing cabinet over the edge, one Jason dodged, then leaped over to grab the railing to begin pulling himself up. "You know what they **did**?"

It took Jason couple seconds to get halfway up, then Baker just had to fire at him with another canister of gas, forcing Jason to release one hands grip and cover his mouth, leaving one arm to carry all his wait. "Damnit." Jason muttered, feeling another couple stitches come undone.

"It's better to work for him, he would have agreed with what I've done, he would have been **proud**." Baker loaded the gun with yet another canister, readied it to fire.

Yeah, fuck that. Jason swung his legs up to clear the remaining space with one flip and kicked the gun out of Baker's hand, stitches be damned. "Don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about, but its over."

"He would've…" Whatever he'd been about to say again was cut off when Jason lunged for him. Baker yanked a pipe out of the wall and swung at Jason with the grace of someone who'd taken two karate classes in middle school and promptly forgotten what little they'd learned.

Jason twisted his body out of the way and ducked, then drove his fist into the Baker's gut, right beneath the bodysuit's plating hard enough that the bastard went spinning away from Jason right after he got close enough to see his reflection in the ridiculously glossy hood.

Baker didn't squirm back when Jason approached to finish him off, he was… laughing. Not a good sign in general, in Gotham even less so. Despite the green clouding over Jason's vision, he could tell that much and refrained for getting too close until he could be reasonably sure there wasn't a bomb waiting on his next step.

Baker, if Jason thought, it didn't take too long for his mind to fish out the face of the awkward guard who'd dragged him to the cafeteria a couple times. The one who'd been far too fucking gleeful when he'd gotten his grubby fucking hands on Jason's books.

"You're him." Baker laughed, and pulled himself up. "Blood and mist."

So Talia hadn't done as good a job clearing out everyone who'd seen Jason in Arkham as she'd thought she had, or maybe this freak had just slipped through the cracks. Didn't matter, Jason would tear this one apart on his own.

"The punishment, the punishment fit the crime, brought you back c, cause I got…," he gasped in a breath, "her. Did you find her, did you see how I got Batgi…"

"Shut the fuck up!" Jason cleared the distance in one bound, fury flooding his system, the green spreading completely over his vision as he got his hand around the rat's throat. "You don't mention her, you don't even fucking mention her again you **fucked up** piece of shit!" He flung Baker over the railings, putting all the force he hand into his arm and feeling the trickle of blood from his reopened wound that it caused.

Baker, sprawled out onto top of the cabinets his fall had knocked down let out a croak. "So that's why th, they did it."

Still alive then, not for long. Jason gripped the railing and swung himself down to the ground floor.

"Make you weak, make you **there's**." There was just the lightest scraping when Baker's hand closed around his gun and aimed it right at Jason's face, for a moment, the green was overtaken by red, burning and painful, small though the amount was, what Jason breathed in burned its way into his lungs.

Jason reared back, tried to stem the coughing that was agony tearing its way down his chest and widening the trickle of blood.

"D,don't worry." Baker said, some emotion making its way through the modulator, gleeful as he stepped over the cabinets, he'd found the pole again. "I'll fix you, I'll bring you back, and I'll finish her, screaming for you to see, and you'll be..."

Jason grabbed the pole on Baker's swing and yanked it out of his hand. "I told you not to mention her again," Jason growled and swung the pole against the helmet with a **crack** that left his weapon uselessly bent and sent Baker sprawling yet again. Jason tossed it aside, and this time, didn't wait before getting his hands on the bastard again. "You're dead!"

Jason didn't remember much of the in-between, but when he came to, he was breathing heavily and Jason driving his fist into Baker's gut again, relishing in the gasp the helmet couldn't hide. His fist held so tight it hurt, the first few punches went to the same spot again and again, the others hit wherever just about everywhere else, every part of this fake Hood they could reach. The Baker wasn't making much of any sound anymore. Jason removed his dagger from its sheath and flipped it once before he plunged the blade into…

' _Please stop. Please, please just stop Jason, it's enough.'_

Into the wall besides Baker's head. Jason could see his reflection in the too glossy finish of the blood splattered hood, he looked cold, blank, his features not at all displaying the roar of emotion's dictating his actions, red mist swirling around him. He released his hold on Baker and the man sank bonelessly to the ground as Jason stepped away from him.

Was it enough? _'…it won't be for me… I don't_ _ **want**_ _that, okay, I don't want you to do that'_.

"F you rreeealy hat, hated what I did, y'woulda…" Baker slurred, his hand already closing over a twisted piece of metal that had broken off the side if the cabinet, wearing the Red Hood's helmet, talking like he was some kind of… disciple.

"It's not about hate." Jason kicked the metal out of reach then yanked both of Baker's hands behind his back and secured them to the railings of the lowest steps. "But this," he reached down for the clasps of the hood and they released with a hiss, then he yanked it over Baker's head, "is mine."

Baker's face was plain, nothing striking or even a little memorable about it, without the hood, just another in the crowd. Nothing to say he was responsible for everything his drug had done. Jason didn't take the time to look down at it, he was all out of time, and he needed to get back to Stephanie.

On his way out, his foot crunched down on a gas canister that had been scattered in the fight and it started hissing out its red poison. Baker called out to him, begging, not for mercy, he didn't beg for Jason to take him out of the room, or to stop the flow of the frenzy. He begged for the Red Hood to go back to Gotham, to take the empire Baker had built and carry it on…

It made Jason sick, even the little of it he heard before he was out of range.

 **000**

He'd taken too long.

Stephanie was still propped up against the wall where he'd left her, the banging from the door down the hall hadn't gone quiet yet, or maybe it had just stopped and started up anew in the time he'd been gone.

She was still conscious, at least conscious enough to flinch away from him when the first thing she was the hood looming over her.

"S'okay." Jason pulled it off and did his best to make his expression more smile than grimace when he knelt down besides her. "S'okay Sunshine, s'just me, I'm back." He dropped it on her chest, then gathered her up into his arms, almost melting in the little of her warmth that seeped through both there armor's to reach him, standing up again after that was much, **much** less of a pleasant experience.

Jason but back a gasp at the pain that shot through his torso and stumbled, the only thing that kept him on his feel was the wall his back fell against. She felt a lot heavier than she had the last time he'd picked her up, the fault of the blood he could feel gathering in his shoes, he was sure.

"Jay?" She blinked up at him, her brows furrowed, worried as one of her arms snaked around his neck and the other held onto the hood like it was a teddy bear.

He smiled down at her and breathed through it, adjusted her weight in his arms and pushed back from the wall. "I gotcha." He did, but she was trembling and now, so was he. Not a good combination. She did make an okay compress, but he doubted she would find that as amusing as he did, so he didn't say it. "Let's go."

Easier said than done. Jason's progress down the tunnel passage was slow, more of a shamble than even a walk, and with frequent breaks in between. The only exit he could reach from here was the one Baker had tried to escape through, easy to spot when they passed the red leaking through the passage halfway there.

The grenade he'd tossed made the tiling uneven, and Jason had to move extremely slowly to pick his way over it, too slowly, and by the time he was done, he almost couldn't remember what it felt like to have breathing not hurting anymore. He told himself that would be the worst part he'd have to get through.

He went down on his next step. His legs folding under him when, his body simply refused to keep going. This feeling, he knew, he'd felt it enough time to know what it meant. No. He tried to pick himself up, but his desperate, grasping hand couldn't fine purchase on the smooth, plastered wall.

He had to do it, had to keep going, because if he died down there, then what had been the point of getting out in the first place? Why had he lived through the last time he'd dragged himself through the place? But he couldn't, he just couldn't get the two of them up.

"Jay, stop." Her voice was soft, so very soft, very unlike the rough texture of the glove she pressed against his cheek. She lifted her other hand, clumsy and shaking too much to do it with any sort of ease, and took of the mask that obscured the lower half of her face. The smile she gave was watery and weak. "Not workin'."

"Sorry." Jason let his head drop down to rest against hers, pulled her as close as he could. He thought about The Dive, and movie nights watching the stars at the planetarium. Those weren't things he would have gotten if he'd been stuck in Arkham; they weren't even things he would have gotten if he'd gotten himself out instead of being dragged by her. It would have been worth it, for him, for all those months he never would have dreamed someone like him could have had. Worth it, if only he could have done the same for her. But he was too weak to save her the way she had him, and now all he could wish was that she had left him there, then maybe… "So, so, so sorry."

He tried to bury his face into her shoulder, to hide the trails of salty liquid he could feel flowing down his cheeks, but she pulled him away, dropped the helmet to cup his face in her hands.

"Did you get...," she gasped, then forcefully exhaled, "…hurt?"

"Nah." Jason smiled, the action causing his tears to drip down and land on her face. God he wished she didn't have that cowl off so he could see more of it again, as it was all he could do was brush his tears from her jaw, be grateful that his blood couldn't seep through his sturdy bodysuit. "Not a scratch."

"Then, t's fine. It's fine, long as…" a tremor ran through her body and her hands moved to grab onto the black and red camo fabric at Jason's chest, and held on until it passed. "Jus', don' leave me alone, she tried to smile again, but he could see how it pained her. "Kay?"

"Yeah, 'm right here Sunshine." He sighed, heard those footsteps again and curled himself over her as much as he could, heedless of the pain it sent racing through him, it was all the protection he could offer. "Not goin' anywhere, won't let you be alone, I'll be right…"

 **000**

 **Beep… beep… beep…**

She was being dunked in fire and ice, something that tasted like ash being shoved down her throat.

A million bugs crawling under her skin, scratching with their little clawed feet, biting away at anything soft enough.

A pinprick of pain that sent lava scorching though her veins.

No, no, no, no. She tried to scream, but there was something hard and plastic down her throat. Her arms forced down.

Screeching in her ears, terrible, too loud, it was too **loud**

 **Beep… beep…**

' _m right here Sun…_

Where was he, he wasn't…

 **Beep…**

"Jay…"

She got her eyes open, more beeping. Bed. Scratchy sheets. Those terrible, terrible clashing colors. Leslie's.

Jason wasn't there, she looked all around, at the window, and the empty seat besides her. No one was there. She was alone.


End file.
